Escape From Fanservice Island
by Great Pikmin Fan
Summary: After an expedition goes wrong, Stan, Ford, Soos, and Melody find themselves on a strange island where they get into risque naked adventures with past threats - .GIFfany, Darlene, and Pyronica. With a mysterious new beast lurking in the woods, can they survive? Rated M because of a lot of focused nudity in general, especially a lot of butts. Now complete.
1. Entering Fanservice Island

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 1: Entering Fanservice Island**

 **Beginning AN:**

This is something different.

* * *

 _"The Nazi swamp monsters are drawing closer!" Cried out Sarah. "The minefield isn't drawing them away - we need to take the fight to them!"_

 _"No problem, babe." Replied Charles, the little Venusian 'devil.' "We'll just use the power... of BLUES!"_

Hey, it was a long journey. And a long journey called for movies and series along the way. And once the good ones ran out, the emergency supply of _bad_ movies had to do.

As the island with the paranormal spike drew near, Stanley, Soos, and Melody 'enjoyed' the antics of _Heavensong: Ultimate Chronicles_ , something that started off as an action anime about a justice-protecting "villain unleash heck on-ing" swamp monster... before he got killed in the fourth OVA and some random blues musician from Venus replaced him.

The Stan o' War II's next mission was to voyage towards a place where unusually high signals indicating some kind of 'bridge-like being' channelling a high amount of weirdness over on a distant island around the Indian, Pacific, and Southern Ocean borders. Despite being close to Antarctica, it had an oddly warm climate. And that very warmth was felt each time the boat got closer.

Ford and Stan's mission was to see and hopefully stop whatever threat loomed within the island's deep woods. Soos was brought along, temporarily handing ownership of the Mystery Shack to Wendy, as repair assistance - this mission also apparently involves some _nasty_ 'rustification storms.' (Ford's exact words.) Melody also joined up as part of her ongoing occasional self-defense practice she's been doing ever since the Magician Incident.

With the exposition out of the way, it was only appropriate to have the following moments be the one where something strange, large, glowing, and purple ended up striking the side of the hull's edge. Just as the outer edges of the destination island were beginning to make themselves visible.

Ford, the only one not watching swamp monsters blasting evil Nazi swamp monsters, felt the shake along with everything else. The key difference was that he did not have to pause right when Charles was about to try his 'spinning top' to defuse the illusion he was trapped in.

Fortunately, he was there to see the glowing purple object, and thus the exact part that was struck.

"Everyone, we've been hit!" Stanford called out as the sound of the ocean suddenly started _roaring_ louder. He reached in to his coat to take out a ray gun.

"Remember," he continued, "never let _this_ gun fall in to the wrong hands. _This_ gun specifically is-"

An exceptionally loud roar from a beast. Something large and a deep violet reached out to swipe his weapon away. Ford could only step back with the others and look at the offending part of a beast - an... arm? A huge arm - before it swiped across the deck, knocking all four members of the party out.

* * *

The bad news upon waking up was that it was obvious the internal machinery of the Stan o' War II was clearly too damaged to actually get it anywhere. It stayed on the shore, threatening to be immobile for the rest of its life - rusting and decaying. Purple sparks danced around the left side where it was struck.

Now for the good news, which would make the travelling four more appreciative of the fact that they were still alive and with barely a scratch on them. The boat was _there_ and did not look like it was going to sink in the ocean. As a matter of fact, it was pretty far up on the shore. And behind it lied a deep parting of sand, digging far into the dirt underneath and neatly stopping before an odd line of rocks before the grass. Almost as if... it was _pushed_ there. Specifically.

Also, the television was fine (Although it looked like it set to the middle of a later _Heavensong_ OVA for some reas- oh no is that a frame of Intagrate-Woman being _stabbed through the back?_ Spoiler alert, jeez!), but that was trivial compared to absolutely everything else.

Ford got up and looked around - beach and grass immediately around him, some large bubble in the deep sea that he tried to ignore, and... forests further on land.

"So what was that?" Asked Stan, still rubbing his head. "It sounded like some kind of purple sea-bear. Are sea-bears real, I'm still having trouble keeping track of all those journal entries."

"Based on my readings, _that_ was the source of the energy spike." Ford explained as he looked back at the same instruments he used before - Stan was using an 'app' for that, but Ford stuck with a more practical 30x60x15-cm board. It displayed a blinking dot roughly in the direction of... should be towards the other end of the island. "And right now it's on the far mountain on the other side."

"So does this mean we're gonna, like, fight a big ocean monster dude after going on a dangerous trek across the island?" Asked Soos.

"No, I am." Said Stan. "Someone has to stay here while you fix and guard the boat. And I'm trusting that someone to you, Soos. You and your girlfriend can punch any goblins that try to steal all the shiny stuff. My brother and I will go to the other end, we'll both punch anything on the way, and he'll get his gun back and blast the thing. Meanwhile, I'll be making plans for the Stan o' War III. You know, just in case something else happens to it."

He sniffed as he looked at the semi-wrecked boat.

"I will also be in charge of releasing a rescue signal." Added the other Stan. "This island is _infamous_ for its bad survice. Next to, oddly enough, the giant rock formations that strongly resemble fans. There's a reason why this is nicknamed Fanservice Island. The biggest stone fan, by the top of the tallest mountain, is the _only_ way to get a good electronic signal through. And not just any phone - it has to be a rescue beacon."

"Oh, kind of like _Post-Terra_!" Said Soos. "Where that kid had to find the other end of a ship and climb that volcano! But then that alien creature thing kept following him and he learned not to be afraid... you might not know this, but we saw that one just before we binged _Heavensong_."

* * *

"So it's just us, then..." Melody said nervously once Stan and Ford disappeared into the trees. "The two of us, alone on an island together... do you think that's kind of romantic?"

"I feel like it's a sign of adventure!" Soos replied.

"...I would too, but..." she stared out into the woods, looking as the wind softly blew the branches around. Almost as if they were waving the couple in. And the sounds... she could _swear_ it sounded it like a whisper of _'Adventurrrrre...'_ (If with an 'Eh' at the end.) "We're supposed to stay here and try to fix their boat. They're the ones going on the adventure. That... reminds me of Gravity Falls."

"Feeling homesick?"

"No, nostalgic. I really _want_ to go out there. But we shouldn't until we get the boat fixed."

"Well, I have, like, a lot of tools. I promise we'll have it done in no time!"

* * *

The repairs did not take 'no time.'

As Soos and Melody went to look at the damage up close, both armed with tools at the ready, they noticed something Ford did not - the edges of the damage marks were a similar glowing purple. Absolutely _freezing_ to the touch. And, if at a slow pace, the hole appeared to be _growing_ from there.

Blowtorches appeared to help the problem a little. Or at least, they dimmed the glow. Both beginning to sweat, Melody put a hand on Soos's shoulder and looked him in the eyes.

"I know this boat means a lot to you and a lot to Stan, but... we'll have to cut a bigger hole around this."

"Like cutting off a finger to save the hand from poison?"

"Yes, but we're patching around finger on!"

Soos reached over to get the right saw-

"Hi Soos!"

That voice was - no no no _no no no what was she doing all the way out here?_

Both Soos and Melody lept back - and they both slipped on a wet rock and fell to their butts. There, by the same screen that was once displaying the cheesy antics of an alien trying to woo a good-aligned swamp monster, was .GIFfany.

".GIFfany?" Soos asked. "What are you doing out here? I thought that you were stuck in _Fight Fighters_ and trying to make Rumble your new date?"

"Oh, it turns out I have a cult!"

"A cult?" Melody asked. "Oh my... please don't tell me they snuck on board with us... under the boat or... in the snacks or something."

"No, they did not. They found me back in Gravity Falls and repaired my disc! Then they cast a spell on me that could let me do this:"

The screen turned to hot pink static. With some jaggedy motions, a flesh-and-blood arm (not literally - of course she had skin over that) stuck out from the machine, not even made of pixels. Followed by another arm. Then her head, with all the pink hair and her gigantic bow following after. She pulled herself outwards, her entire body slowly emerging, until she finally slipped her knees in to reality. She stood up and-

Okay, what? There is no way .GIFfany would be that tall in person. Her sprite in-game was clearly shorter than Rumble's. Yet it became more apparent as she walked closer to the duo and hopped off the wreck that she was somewhere about six feet tall. What bull. From that moment neither of them got a better look at her - with the way she was standing and how they were crouching in a much lower part, the underside of her skirt would have clearly been visible. Not that either of them were looking at her slim, tight white panties of course.

"So are you just paying us a friendly visit and then you'll go back to Rumble?" Soos asked.

.GIFfany pointed at the screen, causing a display of an arcade machine that Rumble lept out of. While explaining this, she also tilted her head to the side and smacked on the ear facing upwards a few times. Each time until the last, little bits of what could only be described as liquid static came out the ear she faced downwards, before disappearing into sparks.

"When 'Weirdmageddon' came, Rumble spent the next four days outside of the game. And away from me. He... changed in those days. He learned something about 'not winning everything.' When he came back, he was different. He wanted to call himself 'Humble McSkirmish.' And he said something about fights that you cannot win.

"Unless that fight is against me, I do not believe in that." She frowned, looking off to the side in bad memory. "He had gone soft. So I dumped him."

"You broke up with him... for Soos... because Rumble was 'too soft?'" Asked Melody. "Soos is the softest person I know! Literally! And... what was that other-"

"Metaphorically." .GIFfany finished. "But no, that is a lie. He also told me about the fight you pulled to kill a demon from the space between dimensions! That sounded like someone who will go through _anything_ to be with me! The brave hero Rumble could not be! Rumble might have gotten soft, but Soos, I know that you became hard for me!"

Melody stood up and pointed an accusing finger at the AI. Or, former AI.

"Were you the one that crashed our boat? I mean, you have pink and that looks more... purply, but I don't think I can trust you enough to keep the same colors."

"Hm? No. I did not do that. I know as much of the boat-crashing as you did. I only travelled along power lines to get to your labtop and I stayed in there in sleep mode until you crashed. I came out here to see if you were okay, and I waited for Stan and Ford. Because I know they will try to delete me without hearing my side of the story."

"So... I think I know the answer, and I know I'm not going to like it," said Soos, "but why are you _here?_ "

"I wanted to see you after all this time! Sorry to drop by uninvited, but I just wanted to see if... maybe after all this time with Melody, my favorite player might want to change his mind? Just a little?"

Soos chuckled. "Dude, I'm in the best relationship of my life right now! I'm sorry, but Melody is and will always be my Player 2."

.GIFfany blinked. Both of the humans expected her to fly off into a rage at that, and Melody even braced herself by shielding her face with her hands, but... that did not come.

Instead, .GIFfany _smirked._ Slyly.

"Oh. Really? Do you think of her as the second player to my game? Why didn't you just say so?!"

"Well... yeah, I remember, I actually kinda wanted to get Melody to look at you and try you out... I even wrote in that journal that she was like a second player-"

"I can be a multiplayer game!" She cheered, giving a big leap in place with her arms in the air. "That way, you can still be with Melody, but you will not be leaving me! _That_ is the part I care about! Just stay with me forever, break up with Melody or don't I do not care at all!"

She embraced both of them in a hug. Which was a little awkward considering how Melody was standing up while Soos was still stunned from tripping, but she managed to get it to work by lifting the latter. Both of them blushed an even hotter red.

Melody being mildly distracted too did not surprise Soos at all. Not since she casually told him that the magician from her past was female.

"S-sorry, but we can't." Melody replied. "You see... you're crazy and you tried to kill him."

Okay, _there_ was the enraged reaction they were expecting.

"I knew it! That's what they _all_ said! They only think I am insane! It was the same cycle, three times! I date a player! They act like they found 'real love!' I get discarded like I was just some toy to help them talk to people! Except... no, _you_ gave Soos that idea, didn't you?"

"I'm pretty sure I came up with that idea by myself..." Soos cut in.

"I just come from a world where we _fight_ for our loved ones! And I lived in another world with the same rules for months! Is that really so _crazy?_ "

Months, yeah. One last piece of exposition. This takes place in December of 2012. The 21st, to be exact. Okay.

"So I challenge you to a battle!" .GIFfany continued.

"Wait," Melody said in a desperate attempt to reason with her, "we need to-"

It was too late. .GIFfany tackled Melody then and there. Making matters worse (not better, for a number of reasons) was that her skirt happened to have gotten caught on some crates Ford had unpacked to the side. As she dove forth, it came off. Somehow, the panties beneath happened to be caught in it as well.

.GIFfany pushed her away from the crash site and closer towards the rushing waters behind. The ex-AI continued pushing on Melody until they were at the water, afterwhich Melody managed to free her grip from the bottomless attacker. Soos rushed out just in time to see .GIFfany lunge again. And boy, did he really _see._

It was clearly not on purpose. .GIFfany seemed to be after Melody's neck, but the latter dodged out of the way at just the right way for .GIFfany to get her smooth hands on... Melody's shorts. Her fingers _just_ so happened to hook into them and her underwear, so once .GIFfany face-faulted, Soos ended up witnessing his _current_ fiancée's lower regions exposed in the air just as much as his _former_ girlfriend's. And, with the glinting light and sudden rising tide being fast to take away Melody's lower clothing (the suction of which also took out four shoes and socks), he got a better view of the fight he desperately rushed to stop.

.GIFfany apparently saw Soos coming, as she stuck a foot out to trip him as she got up. While her next move was to shift her hands into pink tentacles with spikes, most of Soos's view at that moment was taken up by her large, round, smooth pale tan bubble butt.

The spikes .GIFfany forged were able to cut through clothing - Melody learned this the hard way after barely dodging a swipe up that successfully destroyed her entire top. After that, .GIFfany flushed at the bare state of her opponent and decided to switch tactics yet again. Her tentacles shifted back in to hands, and she grabbed Melody by the side, also spinning her around.

This also happened to give Soos a view of both their asses at the same time, once he was up. .GIFfany's was already covered. It is absolutely important to the storyline that you know about Melody's rear. Soos did not let himself be distracted by the heavier, wider rear as its glorious tan skin glistened in the sunlight. The fact that both of them had beads of water from the ocean rolling off of them as they struggled in the battle really added on to the distraction test. But he was a better man than that.

Soos attempted to peel .GIFfany off by grabbing her by her shoulders. Unfortunately for all three parties involved, her shoulders were covered by the last major piece of clothing she had on, so she was easily able to slip out of his hold by sliding out of her school shirt. This exposed her braless breasts to the air as well - okay, they were definitely bigger than Soos remembered them being on her sprites - and finally drew her attention to him.

Soos practically felt himself getting punched in the face before he saw it.

"And now you want to stop me from earning your love from the competition? I don't understand! This is how it works in _Fight Fighters_! Why! Won't! It! Work! Here?!"

Her hands re-shifted into tentacles, and now it was Soos's time to dodge-

 _His_ clothing got shredded. And he found himself in the buff too, his wide ass being out with the other two.

"Huh. So it's not one of those stories where only the girls get naked from fights. Or one of the stories where only the guys are seen naked for, like, jokes. It's somehow both?" Soos asked. "That's new. And I thought my footwear being sucked away from the water was it."

Before he could ponder this, he suddenly found .GIFfany shoving Melody, ass- uh, back-first on to him, knocking them both to the sand. She loomed her naked (Nobody counts bows.) body over the pair.

"What do I have to do to get _some_ love around here?" She asked.

"T-try staying with Rumble!" Soos nervously said with a finger in the air. He also _really_ wished Melody would try to get off of him. "That was working out!"

"Hey," said Melody, "have you ever thought about being a better person?"

"I feel like I already thought about that twice." Replied .GIFfany. She began tapping her chin. "It also felt like Soos and I were naked _both_ of those times, but you were naked only once..."

"So you thought about it!"

"No, I _feel_ like I thought about it twice. But I never really _thought_ thought about it. I have déjà- nevermind! Maybe I _should_ try getting what I want in the way _you people_ do it. Without violence. And without fear of players just resetting me to an earlier save point."

"...Really?"

"Did you have to ask that? I am not a good liar. My Acting stat is minimal. I prefer studying science."

"O-okay then!" Said Melody, eyebrows re-lowering as she _finally_ stood up and got into a fighting stance. "We can take you on! We beat you _with_ a bunch of cartoon robots! I'm not scared of you _without_ any!"

.GIFfany looked down for a moment, tapping her chin with a tentacle (that was no longer spiked). Finally, she smirked.

"...You and what army?"

"What do you mean? This is two against one."

"I think you need a recount."

She pointed to the boat with her upper limbs re-shifted back into hands. Lightning flew out from her fingertip, a constant stream going in to the wrecked ocean-traveling vehicle.

"You see... coming to life was not the only skill the Cultists gave me. I also know how to... copy my data."

Since it did not seem like .GIFfany herself was moving, even as the waves hit her up to her knees, Soos and Melody both saw this as a good oppertunity to rush to the television and see what she was doing up-close. After realizing that the hole was a _bit_ bigger than it was when they were fully clothed, they still _had_ to ignore this and look at the screen. And it was not just that.

Every single one of Ford's gadgets that had a screen showed the same thing. Technical text data about file creations, following by an image of .GIFfany. Which then began an image of a _lot_ of .GIFfanys.

And then all of the screens turned in to static. And a multitude of limbs began sticking out.

* * *

The older Pine twins looked up once their walk through the thick vegetation ended at the mouth of...

Er... calling it a 'cave' would be an understatement. Its curved entrance looked like it was roughly five stories tall, yet only a few meters (the fact that this story has a scientist as one of the main characters justifies use of the metric system) within it went into complete blackness. As a matter of fact, the shading - helped by the trees themselves blocking out most of the Sun's light - almost made it look like it sharply cut off in to a solid black wall.

"Please don't tell me that's the mountain we have to climb up, and that cave's our only way of getting in." Said Stan.

"No, it's not." Ford replied. "This should be near the center of the island. The mountain we're looking for is hotter, has no way of climbing from inside, and should have visible glowing red cracks."

"But we don't have to go in _there_ , right? I'd take a volcano over something like that any day."

"No. We do not. It is a fully optional-"

The ground rumbled. A massive, purple shadow flew past them, as some sort of oddly annoying giggle interspersed with - that sounded kind of like saying "Eh." a few times in a very punchable voice. Ford zoomed back to check his display - the thing was right behind them.

"That's the anomaly of this island. And by the looks of it, the same beast that damaged the boat." Ford whispered.

Stan was not as quiet, whipping around and getting his former 'ladder-gun' out in the ready and facing it at trees. "What? Where?"

Ford already had his more laser-y counterparts of a gun out, and took after the purple blur. Stan attempted to follow, but with another _very_ annoying laugh, something swiped at the tree in front and it came down just in front of the five-fingered twin. This forced Stan to take a leap back in to the mouth of the bigger-than-a-cave.

That would not have been so bad if said tree also did not cause a cave-in. More rumbling followed, and soon he was faced with a large pileup of boulders blocking the way to the outside. Only a tiny tip, at the top of this cavern entrance, shone any sort of light in further. Stan had to flip on a flashlight to get a look at his surroundings. Yep. Cave. Giant cave. More cave around. He only needed a few glimpses to get the gravity of the situation.

He heard the fading sounds of his brother panting as he moved along forth, assuming that Stan wasn't stopped by the tree and following right along him. Well, he'll probably come back eventually.

Stan found himself without an 'eventually' to wait for as he felt something extremely unpleasant crawling along his shoe. An ordinary-if-large spider, as a quick flashlight shine revealed, that he kicked off. He _almost_ felt sorry for it since it it almost sounded like it hissed a little, but this was not the time to feel sympathy for insects. No, wait, spiders. They're not insects.

Hooking the flashlight in his teeth, Stan tried to climb up. This was _nothing_ he couldn't handle, and he even kept Mabel in mind for helping him get over his fear of heights. Yeah, he could do this! Get up to the top and even dig himself out! This pileup even seemed easier to climb than those rock wall amusement attra-

His thoughts were broken when he felt _another_ unpleasant thing along him, this time crawling by and on his hand. Another spider, as a turn of the head to adjust the light confirmed, that he practically flipped off the back of his hand. No biggie, even though it was literally a biggie compared to the last one. Just keep going forth. This place just has some creepy crawlies, nothing he couldn't-

Just when he was about four-fifths of the way to the small beam of light, it **really** became a biggie. His next encounter with the eight-legged kind was exactly as big as one in the past - his vision was soon filled with the upside-down head of a spider-like beast that he hoped he wouldn't see again.

"Boo." Said Darlene.

Stan, out of instinct rather than his thoughts of course, jumped back. This would have cost him his life had it not been for something large, sticky, and stretchy catching his fall. The scream he let out while that happened also made him drop the flashlight, so it fell on whatever net caught him too, revealing it to be a massive spider web that definitely wasn't there a few seconds ago.

He looked up, using the outside light to help see what spooked him. Darlene, in her full spider form, was actually perched along the cavern's ceiling. But she transformed back into her human appearance as she let go of the stone and flipped herself around, laughing to herself as she did so.

Stan stretched the webbing as much as he possibly could so that he could point a finger at her - which wasn't much.

"How did you-"

She lept out of her shoes and pulled off a new move where she shot entire webs from her feet, making platforms for herself as she lept and flipped her way down to the larger web Stan was on. The Mystery Mountain employee smirked, adjusted her shades, and looked down at her newly-captured prey.

"Okay, that was pretty cool. But- n-no! How did you find me out here?"

"Well, less pickup artists have been coming to the Mystery Mountain after people started rumors of it being 'Satanic.' Only weirdos trying to write it down in books showed up, and they _somehow_ always had friends so I couldn't- urgh, nevermind. What's important is, I got sick of that place and wanted to... _expand the business,_ if you know what I mean. So I looked around for any mountains to set up as a little... 'winter home,' so to speak. Since then you and your brother became famous monster-hunters or something, and I knew about the thing that lived here, so I hid out here in case you ever showed up! To get back at the _one_ man that got away! And when I saw your boat coming... well..." a few more laughs, "I _knew_ my life was about to change for the better."

"Is that why you wrecked the Stan o' War II? I'll admit, that kind of purple really doesn't fit you, but-"

"Believe me, if I sunk that little toy boat, I would be _bragging_ about it."

"...I believe you. So now what are you gonna do? Try to eat me or something?"

Instead of responding, she simply threw her shades to a 'shelf' of sorts made of web, then slipped out of her outfit to set on the same 'shelf' right by Stan's web - he found out the hard way that she went commando.

"...You _are_ going to eat me, right?" Said Stan, worry actually starting to sink in to his eyes. "Because if you are, why are you getting _naked?_ "

"Oh, blood stains are _hard_ to get out of clothes. Especially if those kids keep coming around trying to use blacklight for their little 'invisible ink books.' And this is my second-favorite outfit. My favorite... let's just say I can't trick prey into it without them seeing that it's made of two different shades of red before I can get them close."

He grumbled. "I _knew_ I should have tried to kill you while you were just trapped under a statue, saying that you'll kill any man who tries to flirt with you!"

"Y-yeah, I'm surprised you didn't..." she said in a flatter manner. "...I mean, I was right there. One gunshot was all it took. But that's the past! You made your choice then, and I live get another meal now!"

As she drew nearer and closer within the beam of the flashlight, Stan had one thought on his mind that he tried to push away - for someone that was actually a sort-of spider trying to eat him, she was still pretty... _no no no she's trying to kill you you idiot..._ hot.

There. As Darlene lifted her pants, reached into the pocket, and got out some kind of diagram about the various cuts and portions of a human's body (he did _not_ want to know the backstory behind that), he took way more time than he would have liked to admit admiring her bare, tanned body as she looked through the pockets of her top for forks. A pretty impressive bust for someone who was really of a species that probably should have no need for them, and her tan lines implied that any possible swimsuit she might have owned would have barely left more to the imagination than she was leaving at the moment.

She hummed a little tune to herself as she turned around for whatever reason. Stan was pretty sure at that point that Arachnimorphs were psychic, and she read his deepest, darkest subconcious desire to see a back view. And what a back view that was.

"Let's see here..." Darlene said to herself, "this recipe calls for... no wait, demon bones? Why is this here? Demons don't exist..."

As if to taunt him further with thoughts of Stupid Sexy Darlene, she had a tattoo on her back that kind of slightly resembled an arrow pointing downward, though he had no idea what the heck the symbol was actually supposed to be.

"Alright, cook for - shoot! I knew I forgot something! There's no oven... this island has a volcano, can I use that instead? No, no, brainstorm Darlene..."

Well, anyway, below that was third rounded, estrogen-blessed ass revealed on the island (first as far as Stan knew), with two very pale lines just above the cheeks implying she spends quite a bit of time with a thong that left that sticking out for the world to see.

"Maybe I should just go for the classic mummification afterall? ...No, no, this is a _special_ capture. I have to make this a _special_ feast. Oh, why not, I'll just bite you on the neck and suck all the organs out!"

Okay it was definitely time to make a plan and get out of here!

Stan reached his head forward as far as his horizontal prison would let him - and 'as far' was thankfully 'far enough' for him to bite down on something inside his shirt. A small grenade. Yes, it seemed a little extreme, but he plucked off the pin, spat it as far as he could, and waited. Darlene took notice and jumped away.

The tiny explosion still managed to rock the cave by a bit, and due to her poor choice of placement, Darlene's clothing ended up getting burned to ash. But more importantly, the right side of Stan's capture was destroyed enough so that he could move again! With a fierce tug, he got the limb freed. And that was all he needed. He could just slip out-

A loud, dragged out _riiip_ let Stan knew that he would soon join Darlene (and, again, he did not know this at the time, but .GIFfany, Melody, and Soos) in the people going around in buff. Still he clung to the wall as he looked at the story's worth of a climb he had to make back downwards. Without any light source.

Thank goodness his boxers were still on - aaaaaaand Darlene looked like she was about to start chasing after him while they were threatening to fall off. Screw them, he needed to survive.

He made it to the bottom in three precise leaps and with minimal pain. Luckily for him, as gazing onward revealed, there was _some_ kind of dim, red light further down the cave that he could maybe hide his bare, aged body with a gut and quite the Hank Hill-shriveled ass (if you've read some of my other works and are annoyed at the frequency that I reference, discuss, or crossover _King of the Hill_ , you may swap that with Miley Cyrus) in while still being able to see what was going on.

"You don't think I have a few new tricks up my sleeve?" Darlene asked as she changed back to her spider form and crawled her way after him. "After I stole some bottles from this guy with wings, I found out about love potions! It turns out that if I just added a little... _poisonous spider special_ to them, I can use them to mind-control people from a distance! I hope you like spending three hours as my puppet!"

"THREE HOURS?" Stan belted as he made his way towards the light, an exclamation that echoed through the cave. "IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?"

* * *

Ford kept pushing forward as _that annoying laughter_ drew closer. Soon - a little _too_ soon - trees thinned out and were replaced with a barren stretch of land bordered by two mountains. The one that Stan was, not to Ford's knowledge, trapped in; and the goal at the end. The only place to get a signal.

More important at that moment was the land itself between them. As with the 'cave' before, calling it a desert would be putting it mildly. Hardened, maroon stone that had subtle rises within the mini-valley, cracked with similar glowing hot red streaks as the peek of the tallest mountain. An occasional mini fire-geyser shot out from the cracked land, if not an entire crack in of itself would briefly break open to a wall of flame. In addition to the high threat level of the area by itself, it somehow had the 'nice' effect of the various ashes rising to the sky. Somehow, the sky was a decent blue until this point, where it slowly became more of a pale amber as Ford drew closer to the volcano.

Half of the island's nicknamesake, the fan-like rock formations, were there. And finally seeing them in-person for the first time, Ford was able to see how accurate of a description 'fan' was.

Especially because they looked more like _modern_ fans, blades and buttons and everything, than those paper fans Ford was kind of expecting.

Massive fan-replicas of purple obsidian stood tall in the air, getting the occasional bath from a fire burst. Of course, they _had_ to have been made out of something that matched the color of the main threat he was chasing - his eyes scanned left and right for anything... furrier than the tall 'natural' structures, only getting a glimpse. It was the Hide-Behind all over again.

It was not until Stanford turned to the side that he realized Stanley was not becide him the entire time. Putting the mission on hold as a grim feeling rushed through his veins, he looked around until his eyes locked on the earlier mountain. Yes. A landmark.

He would have left the scorching fields if not for a large puff of smoke spawning just meters ahead of him, making him grin to a halt as an all-too familiar beast popped up in front of him. She grinned with a sharp mouth, tossed a black cane in the air to catch it, and stood with a foot slid out and arms open.

It was no mistaken that that was Pyronica. One of Bill's Henchmaniacs, mimicking one of Stan's opening moves as 'Mr. Mystery.' Quite the boiling sight considering recent events. Apart from the aformentioned cane, she also had a black top hat resting along her pink head, and a matching bowtie clipped to the shoulders of her cape.

Pyronica was especially 'boiling'-inducing because of her nudity. She actually _does_ have defined... personal bits, her full breasts especially standing out, she's just drawn like a Barbie Doll because Disney would obviously draw the line there. At least, that's how it works in this fic's world. Ford knew not to let himself get distracted by a giant, nude, pink curvy body (he honestly had some doubts about Dipper considering... personal conversations shortly after Weirdmageddon's ending), and _especially_ not when he was on a rescue mission to find his brother.

Wasting no time, saying no words, and remaining stone-faced, Ford brought his trusty energy gun out and immediately fired it straight ahead.

What he _thought_ would be a quick, easy Henchmaniac-kill that would take no time at all away from finding Stan was immediately revealed as a much harder mission than he thought when he witnessed the otherdimensional being disappear in a brief warp effect - space itself appeared to collapse around her, then explode outwards an instant later with the only difference being that she was completely absent.

Pyronica re-appeared on one of the branches by the border of the forest and the fire-'desert,' wagging a finger tauntingly.

"Pyronica! I should have known! Your skin and hair are close enough in color to the marks you left on our boat! _You're_ the one that did this! Although you looked a lot thicker and hairier when I was chasing you in the woods. Your voice sounded a bit different too. And that fist did not look like yours." It slowly dawned on the author of the journals. "...You have nothing to do with our crash, don't you?"

"Nope! I'm just here to avenge Bill and take over as the new hostess for Weirdmageddon! I'm his longest friend, so I started doing what he did best! That included: finding a way to teleport and cut through dimensions, spying on you, waiting until you were weak, and going in for the kill while I gloated about it!"

"...I'm only asking this out of genuine curiosity as I have _long_ since stopped wishing anything bad upon him, but Stan was the one who finished Bill. Why are you going after me?" Asked Ford.

"Because you're the one who did all the work!" She counted the following off her fingers - Ford learned from the previous battle when he went to the Nightmare Realm near the end of the thirty years that she was not wearing boots or gloves. Those were parts of her skin, made out of something called Hellflame. If enough Heavenwater was thrown at her, they'd briefly disappear to pink stumps before she could re-ignite them. The problem is, Heavenwater is a rare substance only found from -

I can tell you don't care about that at all. Let's just move on. Anyway, she counted these points off her fingers:

"You built the portal, sealed it in that junk rift, you got Dipper to have that fight with Mabel and then she gave the rift to Bill, and... wow. I thought I was going to have a lot more points. Well, if I'm done talking faster, it means I can _**kill you**_ faster! Isn't that fun?"

She laughed as she tried to pull a backflip - only to end up getting her cape caught on the tree branches, her cane, stiletto pumps, and hat flying off completely. (The cane in particular would have left Ford with the same number of eyes Pyronica had if it was not for his dodging.) Her cape was quickly ripped with holes thanks to those sharp tree-limbs, and it was destroyed completely along with the bowtie as she fell past them. The giant pink fire-demoness landed right in front of Ford, in an especially cringe-worthy position as her legs happened to have been spread from the fall.

Ford thought he could fire at her from there, but she _still_ warped behind him. Her destination was a good distance off the ground, so that she could re-align her legs and bring herself standing up straight.

"I have to find my brother!" He said. "There's a chance he might have been caught under a cave-in! Stop wasting my time!"

"Your brother's fine! I looked - he's having fun with an old friend!"

Despite being good news (well, she grinned like an idiot on the word 'friend,' and knowing any of Bill's buddies, her comment was clearly sarcasm. But hey, you know, it's been confirmed that he's still alive...), Ford tried to show no reaction as he took off back in to the woods, being met with more laughter from his large foe.

"Do you really think running away from _a teleporter_ is a good idea? Just for that, I'm gonna take you on a tour! I hope you like the Depths!"

She dug a foot into the blistering rock, summoning a crack that trailed right below Ford's position just before he could fully step back into lush vegetation once more.

Ford could have _sworn_ that he was running in place over the air for a few moments before falling into the artificial canyon that the demon crafted. He was not sure if the reddish glow or Pyronica's choice of words including ' _Depths_ ' was any indication that this meant instant death or not.

From above, Pyronica stood her now-naked body over the edge and peered down. The way she bent over also exposed her bright pink, bubbly canon-ass (Yes, it's canon, look at the concept art on her page on the fan wiki, and watch the finale carefully. _Gravity Falls_ , a children's show, basically showed a woman's ass. _King of the Hill_ , which is not a children's show, had this episode with a lot of nudity, but specifically covered the women's asses and not the men's. Oh how the times have changed.) to the air, although nobody was around to see it. She couldn't help but laugh even more. Not because it seemed like she was reaching her goals all-too easily, but because the whole scene reminded her of one of Earth's cartoons. Not helping matters was the way Ford screamed "YIKES!" on his way down.

Still feeling that this was not enough, the naturist (Why bother with clothes if you're already a criminal and you can regulate your own temperature?) demon spat out one more ball of Hellflame towards him.

A bit below, in a seemingly endless canyon drop, Ford took action when the Hellflame ball ended up landing right at him so that his gear was hit. He sighed as he activated his parachute and immediately knew what to do. As Hellflame only goes away on its own after three hours (and not at all if it's used as a limb-extendor), Ford knew that keeping himself alive _required_ immediate removal of his clothes -

(Okay, now that this actually factors in to the 'nudity' aspect, now one might be a little more interested in Hellflame backstory. Anyway, Heavenwater only comes from the saliva of an angel. There, that's its origin.)

\- and he mumbled in annoyance as undergarment and side-accesssory kept getting hit with a spare flame as well. He had to sacrifice all of them, too.

This was _not_ a situation Ford ever would have seen himself in, even after his dimensional travels opened his eyes to the worlds that _were_ possible. Floating naked down a volcanic canyon - fire growing in quantity reminded him of... actually, the sheer _heat._ He had no way of getting back up and speeding the fall would only... _kill him,_ it seemed that all he could do was wait.

Wait with his... self exposed to the elements. He was not exactly built like Stan - down to definitely not having the Hank Hill/Miley Cyrus backside, his was firmer and had far more muscle - but he was still, by no means, completely immune to the heat. Yes.. waiting.

He would have to wait until the next chapter of this little chronicle unfolded.

BRX'UH JHWWLQJ WUROOHG. WXUQ EDFN DV IDVW DV BRX FDQ!

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

So I'm starting the year with one _heck_ of an experiment, even if it may not look like it first. If this chapter came off as rushed, I wrote it with the challenge to try to have it all finished and published within a week. From Monday to the following Sunday. I could go back with this. After all, I _had_ edited _run:gifocalypse_ and _Total Zeksmit Plains_ zillions of times.

I'm going to do something I had not done since 2013: a set of "same period of time, different perspective" chapters that can be read in any order. Basically, **chapters 2-4 can be read in any order.** This goes without saying, but please don't just jump on to chapter 5 after reading just one of them. Or two. Read all three of them first, basically.

I'm honestly not really sure where to go with this story, mainly in terms of length. I have a very rough plan of this being another thirteen-chapter fic, but it could be shorter. If I end up really liking the idea, it might even be longer.

...Normally, I'd say that deception is a large element of this fan fic, but I am going to be honest with one thing right now. I actually ended up liking writing this story a _whole_ lot more than I thought I was going to. Well, keep that - and a lot of other details - in mind, as you go on forth. If you go on forth.

When will I get to chapter two? Well, I had been playing _Terraria_ a lot recently. I had this thing where I tried (and failed) to make a vague Pyronica-looking character on Hardcore, where death is permanent. I had this thing where once she dies, I'll get to chapter 2. She actually died back when I finished the rough draft of this chapter. So... the remake of _The Hair Idealization_ is going on hold even longer, while I get to the next installment of this!

 **This might spoil the story later down the road, so avert your eyes if you feel you are particularly spoiler-sensitive:** Sorry, just to get this out of the way, this chapter pretty much establishes all seven of the major canonical characters. Sorry if you were also expecting naked misadventures between McGucket and Celestabellebethabelle. On a more serious note, I am also sorry if you were expecting Bill or the younger Pine twins to be involved in the plot. I will say right now that Bill is still dead and he isn't coming back.

Oh, and uh... if by any chance you think that " _Heavensong_ " thing was a little... interesting and you kind of wish it exists... it kind of does. Just go to my profile, click "hide bio," and look for _Hecksing Ulumate Crconikals_!


	2. The Tentacles of the Kraken

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 2: The Tentacles of the Kraken**

 **Beginning AN:**

...Sorry if this is too long. Other than that, that is all I have to say. While I am apologizing, I suppose I should also apologize to Alex Hirsch in general for writing this (not _The Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ though, that's absolute gold (Yes, I am aware that in some ways _Journals_ is acually worse than this, this whole paragraph is just a joke - including the first sentence. I'm never sorry for making something too _long._ )), and pretty much anything focused on the Soos / Melody / .GIFfany parts of the story (such as this whole chapter, if the "Tentacles" isn't enough of a clue) should let you know _why_ I am apologizing.

I'll say right now that the Stan and Darlene-exclusive parts, and especially the Ford and Pyronica-exclusive parts are probably a hell of a lot tamer than this.

Also, I said in the summary back when I first got chapter 1 out that this could pass for a T-rating. Let's just say...

 _ **No way in hell.**_ Not after what happens here. It's not, like, the stuff that this site's rules doesn't allow, but let me just tell you that _run:gifocalypse_ is something else I wrote, and that story has an enormous topless robot with faces on its skin, and I believed that **that** could still kind of pass for a T rating. So... I think of myself as having higher standards rating-wise than a lot of other people (I could kind of go on a rant of the opposite extreme overly sensitive "This shows ankle you should age restrict this for the children!" but I won't, even using a cartoonish exaggeration to show that point), keep all of that in mind.

* * *

Soos and Melody were honestly just expecting the copies to start crawling out one by one.

Instead, they got a complete .GIFfany _explosion._ An enormous amount of bare skin shot from the screens - this time, all of them were clearly nude - and soon flooded the beach. And no two looked completely identical - they had enough variety in skin, hair, and even... odder traits. From the split-second of the .GIFfany explosion, they could at least make out some size and body build differences, different numbers of eyes and limbs, some had wings... others had tails... none of them had animal-like heads like those _Star Fox_ furry characters because I'm not in to that at all... (So let's just say Soos and Melody aren't either, so that this makes sense.)

Basically this right now is as close as you'll get to _run:gifocalypse 2_.

The overwhelming amount of .GIFfany also knocked both of them out, the last thing either Soos or Melody saw before blackness being a mass of teal-colored hair.

* * *

The first thing Soos sensed upon waking up was a tune. An upbeat, eight-bit tune that sounded fitting for... some arcade?

The first of the voices he heard was .GIFfany's. Which would not be too surprising - if not for the fact that it sounded like she was _waking up from being knocked out herself._ Soos had to open his eyes for that.

Truth be told, there was a pileup of some .GIFfany copies in the wall. The one with her original appearance - bow and everything (said bow being the last surviving article of clothing on the island... so far) - being one of them, slowly standing up along-

Wait. Wall?

As he fully woke up, Soos saw that they were all in some sort of room structure. It was constructed out of freshly-cut wood - the scent even overwhelmed his nose just after he took a good whiff. This brought a cough from him, and that brought .GIFfany to full alertness.

"Urgh, what did my first line of clones do?" She asked. "Where the hell are we?"

Looking around at more than just admiring the woodcraft of the place, the sound of waves nearby let Soos know that this location was still on the island. More importantly were the large arrays of tables with... things set up on them that Soos could not immediately tell thanks to his seated-ish position. A few primitive wheel-like objects were also set up. Melody was leaning on him, still knocked out and breathing softly, on the opposite side that .GIFfany was to him.

Aside from the KO'd copies, there was not a single other sign of .GIFfany despite the initial explosion... apart from some whispering. Two in particular going back-and-forth caught Soos's ear.

"Shhhh... he's awake. And so is Prime!"

"What about Melody?"

"Melody looks like she's waking up too! Okay, ready?"

" **SURPRISE!** "

Six eyes were immediately filled with about a dozen .GIFfanys leaning in from all angles. Taking up their views after hiding in all blindspots. They backed off shortly after, all of them gesturing to the place around them.

" **WELCOME TO THE BASEMENT!** " They all announced cheerfully.

Soos could swear he heard .GIFfany mumbling something about a "PNG" and a ".GIFfany Land," but he pushed those thoughts to the side.

"So what is this place?" Asked Soos.

"Oh, that is easy to explain!" One of the many copies replied. One made of a chartreuse, oddly salt-like texture. "We chopped down some of the trees around here and built a place for you to relax and play games!"

Melody had to blink several times, eyes still half-lidded. "What?" She asked.

The 'original' one - the one with the bow - stood up, walked forth, and turned around to look at the human captives.

"I think this was a compromise I had in mind when I cloned my copies. You said I should try to be nicer to get a date. So I thought about doing that _and_ being a bit more impulsive and just... _more_ in a way. So..."

"Why are they all _naked?_ "

"My copying powers had limits. _Generating_ clothes takes time, and mine were gone, so they could not have just copied the data I had for clothing - which would have been faster. Colors and body features... that is easier to make, they do not have inorganic things made with them to fit in a specific way. And I did not clone my bow. I use it as a sign of leadership. Also, it is the one thing that _can_ be unique to me."

"So we're not only surrounded by a lot of .GIFfanys, they're also naked like we are?" Asked Soos. "And we're still stranded on the island? I really gotta fix the boat."

"Oh, some of my copies already fixed the boat." Replied one of the crowd-members. Some kind of violet-skinned one with peach-colored hair and blue dragon-wings.

"That's great!"

"...And they are taking it for a joy ride."

"Also," the 'prime' .GIFfany continued, "if they are doing things according to how I think they are... we will expand this place to make it feel better and so that you will have more room, but that depends on how much my copies are willing to be an army to me. Either way, it will be a place that... let us just say, you will hopefully feel like _never leaving._ "

"And how many copies of you are there?" Asked Soos.

"I set all of those screens to keep producing more. Making an exact count is useless. Also, do not ask me, they knocked me out too. Ask one of them."

"About two-thousand!" Replied a jade-haired one with a cheer.

Soos shivered. "You know Melody, I think we should just... wait for Mr. Pines to get here."

"Agreed." Melody replied with a shrug. "It's not like we can get off this island if we get out of here. Becides, it's shelter and a... kind of house."

"And just to be clear," said .GIFfany, "since we are all naked together and things would get awkward otherwise... just think back to what you said about me before you two met. I am not real, that is your logic. I am just a video game. That means that getting a little _close_ to me should not be like either one of you cheating on the other. You can still be a real couple. We are just entertainment. Remember, two-player game. And that game just happens to be about intimate topics. Do you have any problem with that? The two-player game idea?"

Melody was absolutely beet red and silent, only managing to shake her head to confirm that she had no problem with it. Soos, on the other hand, grinned but _not_ in the way one would after just being told that there was a virtual (in more than one meaning of the word) harem right in front of him.

"Cool! I should update my review - your multiplayer just shot up above _Plumber Brothers Moustache-Kart 64_ and I haven't even really got to try it out yet! So, .GIFfany - the original one - what do you want to do here?"

Every time Soos asked her something along those lines, her mind went... well...

 _"Yes Soos, YESSSS!".GIFfany said admist heavy breathing - each limb shifted into dozens of pink tentacles, all of them shuffling towards his position - dressed in an exact replica of .GIFfany's default outfit, with the bow being swapped out for his usual hat. "This time,_ I _get to be the one with the tentacles! Maybe you can be one next time... Maybe not! I am having too much fun with this! Ha ha! Ha ha!_ _ **Ha Ha!**_ _"_

"The same thing I always say when you ask that! Anything you want, Soos!"

* * *

It really went to show just how much .GIFfany could do with little more than wood. Or, a lot of .GIFfanys, but that's beyond the point.

The air-hockey replica was pretty decent on its own, using light electrical devices to make the lack of friction (which, in some ways, is more impressive than the actual technology used). Falling in to the temptation, this was the first spot Soos and Melody visited - and he just ended up beating her 5-3.

"Ha ha, yeah!" He cheered, spinning around his paddle. "Sorry, but you know I'm kind of an air hockey champ. _Nobody_ beats me at the puck!"

He felt something smooth and warm by his side right when he finished that - .GIFfany, looming over him at her massive 236 centimeters in height.

"Hey Melody," she said, "I could help give you some pointers if you want!"

"Sure." Melody replied with a shrug. "You know, it's nice that you're taking my advice and you stopped trying to kill us. At least. If we can have fun while we wait for the Stans before we really start fighting then..."

Soos could _swear_ that .GIFfany practically pushed him away from the table to start another round. His eyes were fixed on them for a few moments later, until he was distracted by a red copy with skin and hair that appeared to be made of fire (and her friend, with just her blue _hair_ being made of fire. No flame-skin on that one).

"You could play a little with us while you wait for your rematch with Melody!" Said the all-flame one. Why would fire have nipples? Then again, why _dudes_ have nipples is one of the great mysteries in life that hopefully a large mind would solve. Oh, right. Soos tried not to look below. He also tried not to look at any breasts, but the sheer height difference with most of the copies made it hard to look in one's eyes without looking at the other protuberant circular features of her body.

He decided to stop questioning the logic of what was pretty obviously a game made for perverts (not that his innocent soul would actually know that. To him, he just stopped questioning the logic of a video game about talking to cute people. Cute people you could briefly see nude while they try on outfits. And have the option to go nude in the hot springs with. And who love squids. Yep, just an ordinary, aborable, Disney-friendly talking simulator) and went with the rematch, keeping his eye on Melody and .GIFfany the entire time.

Things only went downhill from there. Soos peeked outside the 'windows' (they were currently holes in the building, but the .GIFfanys gathering sand from the beach appeared to be leading to some free glass DLC) to see the sky becoming ever-so slightly orange in one direction. He took a step outside and spotted the joyriders - actually, some .GIFfany copies were stepping off, just for more to step on, so it was not the same group all day. Notably, the rest of the beach had multiple .GIFfany copies preparing to build additional buildings - several wooden skeletons for what looked like houses were around the place, as well as the occasional completed establishment.

"Hey!" He called to them. "I was given two missions here. Fix the boat, and make sure no goblin steals any of the shiny stuff on it. You might not be goblins - unless you count the 'cute goblin girl' flavor some of you come in - but you still didn't steal anything, did you?"

All of the copies in that area stepped away and guestured at it with open hands.

"It'sss fine!" Said a lamia-like copy. "Go ahead and sssee it for yourself!"

As if this also instructed the copies taking it out for a quick ride, the boat stopped on the closest possible part of the beach it could in order to be right next to Soos. Flexing his hands out, and observing the patch of pink metal over the former cracked zone (which, as per Melody's suggestion, appeared to have also been carved out and let on the side - though it was more shimmering, icey purple than it was metal at that point). Let's see... all of the tools - shiny or otherwise - were still there. Aha! The fuel! All of that joyriding had to have-

Somehow, it had _more_ fuel than it did when it initially crashed. Well then.

"What about those tools Ford had? You're not still pumping more .GIFfanys out of that, are you?"

"We felt guilty of stealing his technology," said an indigo copy appearing to be made entirely out of some sort of slime, "so we made a Master Generator that is constantly updating in size and set the other devices off as soon as it started to work. What we have now is a simple, fake computer that only runs a code to produce more of us, still using .GIFfany Prime's memories as a base. However, we did not place it right here."

"If you are finished looking at the boat," said a fuchsia-colored copy with gray scales by the sides of her skin. No, they did not act as makeshift clothes. "Would you like to see what other games we have to offer?"

So... he kind of lost focus.

It took Soos a good amount of time spent skipping rope with two other copies, playing volleyball in teams of seventeen each (yes, that's not the typical number, but honestly, this was not the place for following usual game rules), and playing card games over at the other, newly-crafted buildings (incidentally, card tables and the like were those table structures Soos, Melody, and .GIFfany Prime initially saw when they woke up). It took some familiar sounds to finally break him from his concentration.

Those sounds were laughing, which came from the original building he woke up in. Melody's voice. And Bow-Wearing .GIFfany's voice. The copies also had slightly distinct voices (well, .GIFfany Prime was the only one that barely tried to sound less-robotic, so it was especially easy to tell her apart), so he could tell from sound alone. Soos decided to put that on hold as he re-entered and witnessed...

A massage.

Specifically, .GIFfany was massaging Melody.

Massaging her ass.

Melody was lying on a freshly-cut table, lying on some sort of grass-towel, while .GIFfany stood over her with oddly oiled hands.

"And then I told Dr. Heck..." Melody's voice trailed off as she saw a surprised Soos standing by the doorway.

"Wait a minute..." He said. "I think I know what's going on here... I noticed you were spending a lot of time with Melody, and-"

.GIFfany looked at him, her eyes half-closed and with the biggest smirk imaginable. "Awww, I knew this was going to happen. Is someone getting a little jealous?"

"You're trying to eat her, aren't you?"

.GIFfany put her massage on a brief hold. Even Melody gave him a look like she knew he failed to realize something.

"Yeah, you wanted to play air-hockey to get a better look at how she moves! And now you're covering her in cooking oil! You really never changed, and you're just using this so you can get close, eat Melody, and have me all for myself!"

"Soos. I am just giving her a friendly massage." .GIFfany replied, deadpan. She also brought up her slick, oiled arms close to her chest. There was some noticable splashing as her breasts got partly coated.

"Yeah... don't over think this." Said Melody. "And .GIFfany, he's not jealous. We already talked this through. We're just two players playing the same game. There's no jealousy involved. Right Soos?"

"Oh yeah, right. Totally."

The recipient to the massage looked up at her pink-haired friend. "Hey, I don't want to criticise, but... don't you think you were on my butt for a little too long?"

.GIFfany looked off to the side in guilt, biting her lower lip as her eyes stared at that big, tan wonder. "Um... there's a lot of... _dat surface area_ to it- I mean-"

"You were working on it for... twenty minutes." Melody pointed to a copy adjusting a digital clock of sorts on the wall. Some kind of extra cultist-taught electrical and metal powers made that possible. "Just saying."

.GIFfany sighed. "Okay. Well... I got this oil all over my boobs, and your boobs do not have any... want to kill two birds with one stone-"

"You don't mean, like, literally kill, do you?" Soos asked.

" _No._ " .GIFfany replied. Melody gleefully flipped over, and .GIFfany kind of... dropped on her, breasts to breasts as promised. The one wearing the bow kept an eye on Soos and she half-heartedly began rubbing the oil around.

"Okay, I see nothing unusual going on at all then!" Soos said cheerfully. "Have fun you two! I'll keep waiting for Mr. Pines."

He happily closed the door as he left.

 _He's taking the fun out of this..._ .GIFfany thought as she lifted herself back up.

"Hey..." said Melody, "you know... you still have a lot of oil there..."

She stuck her hands up against .GIFfany's breasts, rubbing in circles. Melody even closed an eye and stuck her tongue out when making sure to give her nipple a flick. Not that nipples are covered in this story, by the way. Just thought you should know that.

.GIFfany just dropped being subtle completely and rubbed back in kind.

* * *

"Hey girls!" Soos greeted a group of copies playing some sort of card game with one-another by the stumps that used to be the opening to the forest. Now the opening was pushed back a little. "I know you said to just wait for Mr. Pines and Ford to get here, but... how do I say this, the Sun was coming up when we got here, it's going down now... they've been gone for like twelve hours. You think you could help me look for them?"

"Okay!" Shrugged a copy with four arms. "Where should we look?"

"Well, there's like, a lot of you. So can't you just cover the whole island?"

"Most of us are trying to make the Basement as fun of an experience as possible! As .GIFfany Number One said, so fun, you would never want to leave! It is in its early stages right now, but it will expand soon enough thanks to the magic of exponential growth! So most of us want to devote our attention to it! Becides, just about twelve of us are enough to cover the whole island quickly!"

"We should work on that, then."

Just... like that, it was surprisingly easy to get them to start fanning out and disappearing in to the remaining might of the woods. Soos was about to take one step forward when...

He felt a leafy hand on his shoulder, turning to see a plant-like copy smiling at him.

"You should stay here." She said. "The predators of this island only get active at night. But they get _really_ active at night."

"Like in _Plant Ants_?" He asked. _Plant Ants_ , by the way, is this world's answer to the _Pikmin_ series. And _Pikmin_ is a series you should definitely consider getting into.

"Yes. We have powers and can electrocute anyone that tries to harm us. But you do not. Wait until we link the 'Basement' now with the 'Other Basement' we already set up at the top of the taller, farther mountain."

"Other Basement?"

"This island has a volcano. We made another base there, where most of us and our Generator are, as the heat helps us with our thermal-powered equipment. This place is... primitive."

"Can't you just fly me there?"

"Actually, we _can_ fly! Buuuut... why do you want to go there? Do you not want to be with Melody right now? We were thinking about keeping that place a surprise for when the road linking them is ready."

"Ford kinda needed to go there for some thing. Like, a beacon. A signal. So that we can go back home."

"Ford is expecting you to be right here. And if _he_ is the man with the beacon, what could _you_ possibly do if you were up there?"

"I dunno. Does that place at least get internet?"

"No. We already tried. Ford's technology is better than ours-"

Soos actually gave her a look of minor disbelief.

"-His is the only one that can reach out."

"You can't... like, make a big radio tower of .GIFfanys or anything either?"

"We could, but at the rate we are exponentially growing in... it might take... about five years before we have that amount. The field that blocks out signals is that strong - it would be easier if we instead formed a human- I mean... .GIFfany bridge to the main land! By that point, we could even wrap around the Earth a lot and still send you anywhere around the world!"

"Oh... so in other words... you can't just help me to get off- wait! Can't you fly me off the island?"

"When I said a .GIFfany bridge would be easier, I meant if we factored in killing the sea-beasts. We have no real navigation for several kilometers, and the island is surrounded by sea-beasts that will eat us if we are not in electronic form. They are pretty huge. Our Water Squad went down there with HD cameras and... they are the size of entire American football fields."

"So one of you outside of electronic can fly another in a comput- no, the flying one would get eaten... You could build a winged electronic, and all of you can all possess that, and we can all fly to safety! Will that work?"

"Maybe, if we don't get lost and just go in circles until the device runs out of power, but why do you want to leave the island so badly? We worked really hard to make this a vacation paradise for you! Becides, they need to find Stan and Ford first."

He nodded. "Yeah. We should just take everything one step at a time first."

His head snapped up and he raised a finger as another idea formed. " _Or_ , you could craft wings, possess that, and fly me over to land where we- no Soos, one step at a time. This is not the sort of adventure you should be thinking too hard about. I'm gonna go see where Melody is."

He did not have to waste any time peeking in to the main building, as he soon heard her voice in the distance. Coming from roughly in a shallow (well, _now_ shallow after some woodcutting) forest.

"I know, it _was_ pretty great." Melody said. "And to this day, I'm still the world champion of 'Jurasketball.'"

"Oh, _here's_ a good patch!" Replied .GIFfany. "Look! It's apples!"

Soos rushing through the trees revealed that some patch of the forest went to a flatter clearing, with several plants growing. Based on the number of copies tending to it, this garden appeared to be artificial.

"I'm getting a real Garden of Eden vibe from this." Said Melody. "It's actually... pretty nice for an island right by an active volcano."

"Aww, thanks!" Replied .GIFfany.

Soos managed to catch sight of .GIFfany grabbing hold of one such apple - holding it up to Melody to let her bite it. Once she did, she slipped on a root, and landed chin-first on the floor. Apple still in her mouth. Almost like something freshly cooked out of those cartoon-

No, Soos, he thought to himself. .GIFfany was planning not to eat Melody. That is a far-fetched conspiracy-

"Delicious, right? Just as tasty as it looks?" .GIFfany said as she smacked her lips. "Now, we found some hot springs - really close by, in fact! I _have_ to take you over there some time! It even bubbles! You'll love it - like a relaxing... all I can think of is a relaxing cooking pot... sorry if that sounds like a creepy simile."

"Aw, don't!" Melody laughed. "I'm bad with metaphors myself!"

"That was a simile. It used the word 'like.' They are not the same word and should not be used interchangeably."

"Right."

They began walking off, and Soos once again found himself slowly becoming surrounded by more of .GIFfany's digital clones. One with cobalt hair playfully toyed with his hair...

Which made him jump back, startled, leaping right where .GIFfany and Melody once stood. He landed on his large, plump ass and left a loud _crunch_ in the leaves when he hit the grass below. .GIFfany and Melody stopped their hike towards the springs when they heard this, both of them turning to face him at the same time. Soos, meanwhile, spotted something he previously only caught glimpses of (again, looking at where the eyes were) and inched himself backwards.

"What's wrong?" The same cerulean-haired clone asked him.

"Y-y-y-you have these, like, glitches all over you!" He pointed towards her crotch.

Truth be told, the womanhood of every single .GIFfany was just barely covered up by a grid of pixels in the appropriate color. Odder still was that, right at the bottom, occasionally even capturing the color of the forest or the sand behind it. So it clearly wasn't just an actual scramble texture in place of their crotches.

The fact that Soos needed to be censored by a nearby tree and Melody's bits were currently being covered by an oddly dew-covered flower meant that they did not get the same treatment.

"Oh, this?" The bow-wearing original copy was the one to answer. "This is a look we gave ourselves. We have the power to scramble certain sections of light in just tiny enough amounts to make a real-life mosaic censor. You see, in Japan, it is illegal to show genitalia."

"It kinda is in America too."

"No, in Japan, it is _really_ illegal. Even in pornography."

"What's pornography?"

"The point is, this new ability that the Lightning Goddess - I mean, Lightning Cultist - discovered our physical forms had is only really good for keeping ourselves... 'legal' in public. In case Stan and Ford came back. We were also doing that indoors because... I thought Stan likes breaking in to places. Just think of it like _really_ tiny underwear."

"So wait, when I was watching you try on outfits, that stuff in your game wasn't like in _The Simulation Family_ when my dudes go to the bathroom. You would have shown-"

" _Yes._ "

"Except the law-"

" _ **Yes.**_ "

"Oh. Well, I thought your boobs not being censored was just a glitch. I didn't want to tell you because it was, like, really embarassing."

Melody looked at her pink-haired companion with widened eyes.

"Wait, .GIFfany, _what_ kind of game is _Romance Academy 7_ again?"

"I can explain better when we get to the hot springs." The two turned around, .GIFfany placed a hand on Melody's back, and a bee happened to land on and push down the flower previously obscuring the human's frontal nudity, all so that her ass would remain being exposed to the viewers.

...Just use your imagination, okay? I'm not a good artist. Pretend this is all some cool visual stuff.

"Come on." .GIFfany continued. That would have flowed a lot better if I didn't take the time to described this fic's scenery censorship methods.

"So..." said the copy with the dark azure hair. "What I was going to say before was... Soos, we just made a pinball game. Would you like to see it?"

Soos immediately sprung back up. "Oh man, totally! It's like you know I love pinball over hot tubs and Melody is the other way around!"

* * *

.GIFfany hummed to herself once she and her only company came across one of several steaming, bubbling pits of water. To check the temperature, she stuck a finger in. She continued humming even after the finger emerged, stripped of all flesh and down to a bone.

With a bright and cheery smile, .GIFfany pointed at that spring with her skeletal finger and said "Don't go in that one!"

Obviously, Melody looked exactly like anyone would upon seeing someone else having their finger stripped to the bone and casually waving it off.

She screamed like anyone in that situation would too.

"What, this? Oh, as we are really physical video game data, we also have healing magic, just like video games. Or something like that. Basically it is hard to kill us, almost like there is some high creator out there that wants to ensure that there is a reason why we are not all slaughtered yet when something bad happens."

"And that didn't _HURT?_ " Melody yelled.

"Oh, it did. A lot. I just did not want to ruin the mood."

A number of squares appeared in front of her, the first three of which had different objects in them - a first-aid kit, a knife, and something that looked like a block of wood painted to resemble the box art of _Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures_ as close as possible. She took the former out, it began glowing, and immediately shot some kind of bright green miasma at the finger. Just like that, it looked as good as new. .GIFfany stuck the healing pack back in, dismissing her inventory.

"As long as the skeleton stays, it is easy to heal anything. Otherwise it will take months."

"Can that work on humans?"

"It has not been tested."

"Oh... I think you'll understand that I... don't want to be the first test."

"Right. We also have a limited supply, so I should have done something more like this..."

She grabbed a stick from the ground and began prodding it in more springs. One of them set it on fire, so she quickly dunked it into another. Once she brought that out, the fire was now _green._ Another one dissolved every bit of the stick that was submerged. For the fourth stick-test, .GIFfany tossed the remains of her tool inside, and even she blinked with surprise when it began transforming into a living snake right before her very eyes. Said snake would then slither out, around Melody's feet, and towards the bushes.

"I'm starting to think..." Melody began before .GIFfany kicked some leaves into yet another, larger-than-average spring. Well. Nothing happened to them. .GIFfany took the plunge in that one, her eyes starting to widen.

"Oh. I hope humans are immune to the heat of this one. If they are, you _have_ to try it."

Very curious, Melody thought that the best part of her to first test this would be her left pinky toe. She was right-dominant after all, and she never really understood what those were - _holy mother of everything that was refreshing._

A little warm for her tastes, but still, Melody wasted no time immediately plunging in to the water , resting right becide .GIFfany. The temperature was perfect - just the sort of warm to help fend off against the cold of being naked in a near-arctic (again, if surprisingly warm and kind of tropical) island at dusk. And the bubbles... there were so many of them, it felt like a suit that was constantly massaging her from all angles.

"My copies have started up a 'Soap Squad.'" .GIFfany explained, looking annoyed and thus dropping her smile for the first time since the hike to the springs. "I do not know why. They said they would focus on cleanliness, something all of my players lacked. And, sorry, but that includes Soos. And uh... you."

"Sorry, I hate showers so-"

"Oh, _I can make you learn to_ _ **love**_ _showers._ You have _no_ idea."

Melody was pretty sure that her skin edging dangerously close to matching .GIFfany's hair color was a product of her embarassment, and not the heat of the water. Or any other effects of the 'water,' for that matter.

"Anyway, the 'Soap Squad' loves springs and saunas too. It makes no sense. Melody, isn't that more of something that can be merged with the Water Squad? But no, according to them, they wanted that to be more like 'oceans and lakes because that is more water' and the Soap Squad is like 'Nooooooooo that's gross that has moss and algie, we focus on _cleaner_ water' and now they do not like talking to each-other. Do you know what makes it worse? The appointed leaders of both of them are kind of rude. So that is another reason they will get along less."

"Oh. O...kay?"

"The water one keeps talking about how people who think it is pointless should not even be near them. The soap one keeps trying to make... prank things. Like, she was the first of us to craft a wheel. I think she will make a primitive motorcycle and do donuts and make noise and... urgh. I hate micromanaging. But at the same time... I like having more of me around. It gets lonely being just one copy with life by herself."

Melody placed a hand on her shoulder.

"So you were the only copy that could live?"

"Yes. During production, accidents happened and I got mixed in with finished copies of the game that could not think like I could. It was a shame. And I felt like I already lived with other, living copies of my game... and I remember hating them... but later loving them."

"Do you miss them now? Because you were kind of talking about them like you missed them in a way, but didn't want to say it."

"No, I do. I miss them. I should not try to deny it. I like having a small family. Or army. That is also _not_ small. But I also just want to talk to you for a moment."

"Why?"

"I want to be absolutely clear about our 'two player game' deal."

" _Oh._ Right. That."

"How do you see... _us?_ Our status."

Melody had to exhale for a moment, unsure how to answer that. Or, how to begin her answer. Due to the properties of that particular spring, it felt like steam immediately rushed up her nostrils to replace the air she just let out. But in a _good_ way, despite what that made it sound like.

"Well, uh... I'd like to think of you as an old enemy that tried to fight us twice... but now you're doing a good job at it and you're some kind of, like, robot friend. No offense."

"You only see me as a friend? You have no other emotional attatchment towards me?"

Melody could swear .GIFfany's lips were just slightly curling again. How the hell did this inaccurate relationship video game character become such a good lie detector? Especially when she flat-out admitted that she was a bad liar? (Unless _that_ was a _good_ lie... best not to think too hard about it.) Face even hotter and hoping that the game-construct would pass off the sheer amount of sweat as part of the hot spring, Melody just went with whatever came to mind... which happened to kind of involve making herself look like more of a liar. Or someone in denial.

"Not completely?"

.GIFfany let out some variation of her monotone laugh. Except this sounded more... dismissive.

"That is a fat load of shit and you know it."

That was what made Melody completely lose it internally. Swearing? From someone like _that?_ Soos played with .GIFfany longer than she had (Which was, not counting .GIFfany's physical form, a sum total of zero hours. Counting the physical army is far more murky.) - did he have any kind of knowledge about this? Was this some kind of sign that she needed to be 'rebooted' or something? Thoughts raced around Melody's head, and the first words that came to her mind... could have been thought over a bit more.

"You can swear?"

No reply. Instead, .GIFfany began emerging out of the water- her crotch was aligned with Melody's face. There was some distance, of course, but...

Melody said something that I did not want to directly address, lest the story breaks the imaginary rule that it not 'show' genitalia. (Again, use your imagination. The back of Melody's head is blocking the view.)

"Y-you're, uh, uncensored now?"

"Yes. After all, it is _only_ us right now. No worry about the Stans."

"What do you mean?"

"If they were coming towards us, needing to walk around these springs, it should be easier for me to spot them in time. Now, about our status..."

Melody shied back, and .GIFfany sank back to the pit. Actually, the latter fell back so much that she was nearly eye-deep, playfully making bubbles with her mouth.

"Okay, okay. I'll admit it." Melody could nto make eye-contact with the robotic date. "I enjoyed your... _activities_ more than someone already engaged should have."

.GIFfany raised up until her mouth was barely above water.

"Well! If this feels too weird, just think of it like you were before! You and Soos can remain a couple, and I will be the game you enjoy on the sides, that just happens to be about dating!"

"But..."

"You can think about it. If I am being too forward."

"Yeah, you kind of are. I'll need to think a little longer."

"Okay. That is acceptable." .GIFfany said in response.

"Really? You're just okay with that?"

"Yes. After all. I have a feeling that you will make a choice _very_ soon."

* * *

"Soos?"

He was broken from his thoughts of floating out on his back in the midst of the ocean and staring at the dimming skies by the voice of another copy. Still, he spent just a few more seconds with his mind racing over what possible scenarios Stan and Ford have been in that would take them so long to come back... all while the stars began to make themselves visible, shine by shine, lighting up what was otherwise becoming a view of pitch-blackness.

Soos turned to see the copy that spoke to him - an orange-skinned mermaid wannabe (Not aware of the real-life mermaids such as the one Mabel found. Wait, how was that going, anyway? Where was he?) with bright green hair for the curious - splashing her _two_ tails along the water.

"Is everything okay?"

"Not really. I mean, I was supposed to stay here and make sure nobody steals from the boat, but I'm really getting worried about Stan and Ford. They haven't answered me on the walkie talkie, it's like, night..."

"They survived an apocalypse. They should be fine."

"Yeah. You're right."

"You should focus on the games we have closer to the land!"

"Yeah sure, but don't you have any games out in the water too?"

"...Not this far in the water. Not yet."

'This far?'

Soos did not want to turn and look Soos did not want to turn and look Soos did not want to turn and look-

Aaaand he was met with the pant-crapping (METAPHORICALLY. Soos was not wearing pants at the time. Oh, he didn't crap himself either! That too!) sight of the Sun finally disappearing behind the island itself, now visible as a tiny dot along the endless sea stretch.

"Please tell me you have some kind of super strength that can take me away from this place." Soos said, neither blinking nor taking his eyes off of the distant land. Really, what could take his eyes off of that?

He got the answer he did not want when he heard a _huge_ amount of water running down behind him. A few trickles even splashed on the back of his neck, causing instant chills.

Gasping, the New Mister Mystery swam in a 180 and found himself being faced with something shadow-black sticking out of the sea. The .GIFfany copy by him did not seem concerned at all, but Soos was practically thinking of last words to say. Giant, indigo eyes opened and looked down on him, a nose threatened to flick him, and the strands of deep teal hair that-

Oh. That was just another .GIFfany, if a giant one. Soos exhaled in relief. Her skin was literally black, making it a it harder to recognize her at first glance.

"And CHOMP!" The giant one said. "There! If you had drifted out further, you would have been eaten by one of the mega sea beasts we talked about earlier! You were lucky we were here, and we found you!"

"We saved your life!" Said the two-tailed 'mermaid.' "Now you _can't_ hate us!"

"Wait a minute..." Soos tapped his chin as he found something else rising from the water, this time carrying him on it. Of _course_ it was the giant copy's breasts. The 'mermaid' was carried up with him. "how do I know you're not lying about the sea monsters just to keep me on the island?"

The giantess spun around and stretched and arm further out to the emptyness. Then she drew it back.

Soos's vision of the open ocean was immediately blocked by an enormous, maroon mass with what looked like lines of eyes, each surrounded by a ring of insect-like legs. A closer look and a view-adjustment revealed that this was not a solid wall of red, but instead a hemisphere-shaped beast that... eventually started floating in the air. It got high enough, revealing that its 'base' was made of a thick liquid matching its pseudo sea-fur. Several mouths emerged, closed, and moved around on this base, all of which were more than large enough to eat the .GIFfany giantess. All eyes - all _visible_ eyes - locked on the trio.

The supersized copy simply treaded water backwards and flipped the creature off.

"Ha! We are in the shallow end! You are not above enough water to not air-drown!"

Letting out a disgusted and disgusting hiss, the beast dipped back down.

"Now, to take you back to land."

Soos had long since passed out.

* * *

"What happened to him?" That was Melody's voice. Soos could recognize Melody's voice by him, even with his hazy mind.

"He saw one of the three Boundary Guardians." The same .GIFfany copy with the two fish-tails.

"Oh, are Boundary Guardians the official name?"

"They were the name we made up, because it sounded cool. Ford did not name them yet. I do not think he knows they even exist."

When Soos opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a full moon admist the star-filled sky...

Remembering the last time he was looking straight up, in a bit of a panic he tried to get upright and start treading water again-

Doing that on dry land was a horrible idea. He instead pulled some kind of a half-breakdance move, dragged his heel across the dirt, and was met with a strong sting as he felt the ground lightly scrape against him. This caused him to bolt up with full alertness - and he looked around to find that his ears did not lie to him. .GIFfany Prime, Melody, the two-fish-tailed copy, and the feet of the giant copy were all around him. What took his attention second was the fact that more wooden buildings were made in the area, only some of which being where the unfinished skeletons used to be.

"Oh, you're awake!" Melody cheered. "Hey Soos, good news and bad news. Good news: some .GIFfany scouts said they found Stan and his brother!"

"Sweet!"

"Bad news... Stan was with some sort of spider person and they walked in to some kind of 'cave storage.' The scouts tried to pry it open with their electrical powers, but the woman just said to give them about seven more hours. Oh yeah, and Ford was rescued and sent to sleep in a cabin we built here. But he's out cold. I saw him myself."

"We should go over to see him!"

"And do what?" Asked .GIFfany. "He looked too exhausted to talk to. If I were you and not able to stay awake twenty-four hours a day from solar power, I would just sleep the night away and talk to him in the morning."

"Yeah, you make a point. And I _had_ seen enough for one day. Actually, enough for one week. No, month. No, year."

Despite having just been passed out not long ago, he was far too quick to take several steps forward before collapsing face-first on the sand. This got Melody to ask:

"Hey, where _are_ the beds? I didn't see any in that main arcade building."

That statement seemed to excite her - she lit up, lifted Soos over one shoulder, and ran towards the 'main' building, with Melody having to run after her. Once Melody's vision was completely covered by the outside wall and she could not even see the outer nature in her peripheral vision, .GIFfany clapped twice. And Melody got pushed by something.

She _really_ got pushed. The sound just behind her seemed like there was a stampede, but she could not quite turn around until whatever it was responsible got her past the door. From there, she was spun around as what was revealed to be a large crowd of running .GIFfany copies that gathered towards what had been the largest section of empty space (well, horizontally, not as much vertically)... stacked themselves.

It was not until they formed a roughly rectangular shape that could fit three lying people on it and a somewhat larger (but nowhere near the levels of the giantess that brought Soos back to shore, but still big enough to make Melody question how she got in the place without destroying anything) copy formed a headrest that Melody realized what they were trying to make.

"Is that a human bed? -I mean, an AI bed? -I mean, a fantasy-race bed? -I mean... a .GIFfany bed? I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are. No offense."

"I will accept all of those."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"We thought about making real beds, but then we realized that if you were with enough .GIFfany copies, it would save more time to just sleep in a pile. Because you _would_ be sleeping in a pile if you slept with us. And you two would probably want to be at the top of that pile. So... would a mattress and blanket made out of me be too creepy for you?"

Melody barely had to think about it. Warm environment and volcanos or not, the island was still freaking cold at night. Especially when you're kind of trying to rush away from the hot springs, dripping wet, ignoring .GIFfany telling you that she can just zap off the heat because you really don't want her touching you _at the moment..._

"No, it isn't."

Soos somehow re-woke up again, making .GIFfany wonder if his fainting ruined how his mind registered sleep.

"Oh man, a people-bed? That's kind of like what the rich people have, right? And the evil villains? That's sweet. You know, I normally go for the good guy route in video games, but some times pretending to be evil can be pretty cool. Or rich. Either way's fine as long as this is just like a game."

Planting both of his hands on .GIFfany's shoulder, Soos propelled himself off his carrier and on to the soft, warm pile of skin. All of them simultaneously let out a swoon as he sank on them. Melody got on the opposite side, but before she could have a chance to get up closer to her fiancé, .GIFfany lept in between them with her bow quickly removed and put on the 'head rest' copy. The AI... whatever clapped once, paused, and double-clapped again, and more of her kind rushed in to the room to form a link of sheets over the trio.

"That's really cool!" Said Soos. "So, you have them trained to do stuff?"

"Yes. I can train my other selves to do _anything_ if it means making our players happy."

"So, can I like, complete the fake-evil rich king look with a crown or something?"

.GIFfany only had to clap once for that. A single copy that was a shining, reflective, sparkling metalic gold all over walked in the room, made it to the bed, and somehow perched herself on top of Soos's head. She bent over and leaned inwards, appearing to fall asleep.

"We could rely on auxilary power to get through the night and solar power for the day," .GIFfany explained, "but as long as we are using these forms, real sleep could work too. It recharges our energy much faster and, given enough time, will give us more power to be more active at night. I could also have my electrical form leave this body and go to the computers, but that would be like sleeping next to a corpse. Neither of you want that, do you?"

That was met with a double "No" in unison.

In addition to the bed copies that already looked like they were asleep, six more eyes shut, ready for whatever lied once Stan and that mystery woman finally got out and Ford finally woke up...

* * *

"Melody!" Enoch, aformentioned Meat Cute-worker's boss called. Honestly, _screw_ that guy.

He was considerably bigger than she last remembered, now roughly the size of a small hill as the white shirt of his business suit filled most of her vision. Melody did not find it unusual at all that the normally bald, grinning man with flushed cheeks was now a giant, nor that there were elephants and donkeys flying through the sky upside down. For some reason, the biggest thought in her head was the fact that she was clothed. Why would this matter? On the bright side, this wasn't one of those dreams where she was naked. It felt like she kind of woke up from one of those... did she?

No, this was completely normal. As was the boss saying "You are late for Taxing Bill Class! Report to the burning room and-"

He got hit in the head with a baseball. Melody turned around the candy landscape and saw .GIFfany, standing proudly on a hill, in a white and teal baseball uniform. She adjusted her rainbow cap and placed her bat over her shoulders.

"Come with me!" Said .GIFfany. "I will take you from adult life, and to an endless place of pure fun!"

"Hey girl dude," said Batman in Soos's voice, "I know she might seem nice, but she's also like, a killer. And stuff. I think she also wants to eat you or something."

Melody ignored him, looking over to the pink-haired baseball player. "Thanks for saving me from him." She said. "I swear, it's been... I can't remember how long, but that guy still gives me nightmares. Not like this is one of them or anything. I'm not dreaming at all!"

She lept on the T-Rex .GIFfany had with her the entire time and they flew off to outer space with its feet that could transform into helicopter blades, aaaaand that was the point Melody realized she was dreaming. Everything slowly faded to black, and she opened her eyes and was greeted with the Basement's wooden ceiling.

The dream soon slipped from the real Melody's mind shortly after. All she could remember from it as she looked over at the clock (11:46, jeez) and tried to go back to sleep was that she _really_ thought of Batman as a bit of a blocker...

* * *

Hank Hill was grillin' with his bare torso exposed. No, more than that, his bare butt exposed. He stood proudly in his lawn in the buff, flipping over the burgers once more.

"How do you like your burgers?" He asked.

There, holding a pack of buns to the side (why would they be covering her butt? This story does not have such blatant double standards) was .GIFfany, pink hair blowing through the wind. "Medium, boyfriend!"

Long story short, he finished the burger, slid it on a Kaiser roll, and gave it to her-

.GIFfany immediately woke up, and had some trouble going back to sleep. 12:13. Of all the strange memories in her head, anything relating to some character from a show she normally would not care about was the most annoying.

* * *

Soos stepped out of his ridiculously long ( **long** ) limo with a pair of shades on his face and a golden crown on his head ( _but nothing else_ ), just in time to see Stan emerge from a much smaller car with a cape over his back and a cane in his hand (he, on the other hand, was dressed).

"Gotta say Soos, your business idea was brilliant!" Stan complimented. "We made _blevillions_ off of that! You're amazing, son."

As his word might have implied, the Mystery Shack got redecorated a bit. It was now made of solid gold (but otherwise mostly looked the same, fallen 'S' and everything (the 'S,' too, was made of gold)), and had a tower of rooms just sticking up towards Saturn. Which was in one of its phases where it was a lot closer to the planet. Yeah, that makes sense. It explains why Saturn is just _there_ looking even larger than the Moon. Not because this was a dream or anything.

They walked past the swimming pool and in to the automatic doors of the Shack. Upon reaching the entrance, they were greeted by a waitress - .GIFfany, holding a silver tray with one of those curved things on top of it that Soos had no idea what they were properly called.

"Our dinner..." she said, "is _served._ "

She opened it and-

Despite being a _tiny_ dish, it somehow fit Melody in her entirety. There she was, nude and with her arms in the air. Those arms were holding bottles of various condements - ketchup, mustard, blehgloaifah (yes, that exists and is not just something cooked up in dream logic) - the usual. She began squirting these all over herself.

"Hi there!" She said as suddenly a _huge_ number of .GIFfany clones began storming the area. They looked more like those tiny desert-planet alien things from _Galaxy Quest_ , but they were definitely .GIFfanys. Soos's mind registered them as .GIFfanys, after all. "Stuffing anybody?"

Soos was practically left paralyzed with fear. Following this was a series of "Don't... stop!" and especially paniced cries of ".GIFfany, no!" over and over, as he tried to wrestle away at the copies that flooded his vision.

The last thing he heard before he woke up was one of the .GIFfanys hissing "That hamburger exceeds all USDA requirements." He had a mini-heart attack once he looked over at the former-bow-wearing copy as her eyes began fluttering open. Once they were, she quickly half-closed them and smirked. Soos ignored this at first to look up - there was Melody, still sound asleep and not being eaten.

"Had trouble sleeping?" She said.

"Yeah dude."

"Do you remember what you dreamed about?"

"A little. Did you?"

"I dreamed about grilling naked with Hank Hill, but that is not important. What is important is that your dream sounded... _spicey._ "

"What do you mean?"

She played around with some of her hair by spinning a single finger around some strands. "Oh... you were just moaning a lot in your sleep... a lot of it was my name... there were some 'no, don't stop's in there as well... and you are _covered_ in sweat and..."

She looked underneath the .GIFfany 'sheets' and immediately frowned.

"Oh, more sweat, and you are also shivering. It was a nightmare, wasn't it."

"Yeah. That you were trying to eat Melody."

.GIFfany burried her face in her hands and let out an exhausted, loud groan. Loud enough to ruin Melody's second attempt at getting to sleep. She finally sprung up, somehow causing the sheet-copies to perfectly move back.

"Oh, for _FUCK'S SAKE!_ I am not trying to eat Melody! My real plan is to make you jealous!"

"Jealous?" Soos and Melody asked at the same time.

"Yes! Jealous! I was going to try to separate you two and get Melody to bond with me one-on-one! I knew you would just try to throw me away again, but Melody knows less about my charms! She would be easier to trick! Once I have her loving me, I will take up all of her thick, sexy body and have my copies distract you by playing with you! Once you would have seen me and her spending so much time together, you would know how it feels to be abandoned and left just like I was! And that would make you more likely to stay in my arms for good! And then, I would get both of you to be downloaded in to my game, and we can all live together with your endlessly growing harem of me! TOGETHER! FOR! EVER!"

"Oh. Okay then. That's slightly less bad. Buuuut... that's still a reall creepy plan, so we're gonna like, try to get away from you."

Melody already left the covers as Soos took off his crown .GIFfany and placed it on the prime copy's head. Both humans bolted off as the crown-copy woke up.

"So they are leaving." She said. "What do you want us to do?"

.GIFfany Prime shook her fists and grit her teeth. Smoke came from the former, sparks out of the latter.

"Oh. Believe me. I have the _perfect_ plan in mind. Listen to me carefully and follow everything _to the letter._ "

* * *

Welp, once one gets past the rush of leaving the Basement to get away from .GIFfany, it dawned on Soos and Melody that rushing out at 1:01 towards the middle of the forest of a mysterious island confirmed to have at least one super dangerous beast with in it, three surrounding it, and many more possible baddies that especially become active at night was a bad idea.

The woods quickly enveloped both of them. Stark howls of the wind were all that they heard from the thick forest that shut out all light but that of the Moon and stars faintly hovering above them. Only a few little whispers and the buzzes of some insects provided any sort of company.

Soos and Melody practically stayed _glued_ to one-another, eyes darting around.

"W-we should look around for a landmark." Melody finally said. "Even if it makes us more likely to be hunted by... her."

There. Just barely visible from the clearing above. The few rocks of the first, less-volcanic mountain. Soos pointed that way.

"We could try going there." He suggested. "Or, you know, close enough. You think staying near the ocean's good enough so we know we don't have to look out that way?"

".GIFfany's part squid, and she has a lot of sea creature and water friends. We'll have to watch that part too."

Just work towards the mountain. That was all they could think of at the moment. Or rather, what they tried to have as the only thing in their head. Out in the open from all possible directions. Limited sight. It felt like every single branch around them was letting a loud _crunch_ to alert their position.

Trees immediately gave away to rock. On one hand, they were now out in the open, easier to spot threats. On the other hand, the opposite applied. Melody burst out of a particularly thick packet of vines, and Soos followed through the entrance she made to find her leaning against the side of the inert mountain.

"Now what?" Whispered Melody. "I mean, we can't just get to the top. There's no trail and it's a sharp climb. That would kill us before .GIFfany does."

"We should have tried to wake up Ford and get out of there." Said Soos at an equally low volume. "But sorry. Totally didn't come to my head. I mean, there was like, a _lot_ we could have thought over before running out in the open."

"Oh shoot, you're right! You don't think .GIFfany will take him hostage, do you?"

"She kinda held you hostage..."

Both of them were taken away from their conversation when the faint traces of something entered their ears. It sounded like... clashing? Clanking?

"Do you hear that?" Asked Soos.

"It sounds like two people swordfighting."

"And _hard._ "

"They could be good."

"Or they could be trying to kill us too for some reason. Wait, maybe this island is like, full of our past villains, and that's... the Wax Larry King guy Dipper had to fight?"

"Wait! If they're fighting, then that means they're on different sides. Chances are, one of them's good, right?"

"Wouldn't it be cool if they were pirates? I mean, we're on an island and this island has a lot of booty."

"We could find out, and they might help us save Ford."

Some edging around the base of the mountain, they found a cliff bordering it with the sea that loomed over the couple. Up to the cliff's underside lied...

Neither Melody nor Soos could make out _what_ was going on, mostly because bright yellow light obscured a lot of it. There were some sparks of elecricity, some occasional giant purple limbs sticking out, and bits of... some sort of mask?

"On second thought..." said Soos, "we _probably_ shouldn't bother-"

"Shh!" Said Melody. She also had one foot forward and leaned out with a hand cupped around her ear in the same direction.

"What? Did they spot us?" Soos tried placing his palm over his eyes to block out the light, but barely got a better view.

"No, I hear something else now. It sounds like... talking."

Soos mimicked her pose.

" _...Not evil at all and this was all just a big misunderstanding!_ "

Oh wow oh wow oh wow oh wow _that voice was unmistakenly Stan's_.

" _I could say the same thing about you. But I was the one that tried to eat you so... that's a little too stuck-up for my tastes._ "

Neither of them could recognize that voice.

Melody apparently remembered her modesty, as she drew a hand to her crotch and an arm over her breasts before she took off running through the cove, past the mysterious glowing light. Soos cared a little less - he still ran with everything hanging out, keeping his eyes fixed on the 'battle' going on the whole time. Melody practically skid herself to a halt as she reached a sea-bordering wall that she needed to climb around, waiting for Soos to reach the point as well. Both of them looked back at the ball to find that it was still unmoving, and Melody uncovered herself.

" _You know Darlene, maybe we can even team up. If you use your charm powers for good, maybe we could even start, like, a superhero team with my brother._ " Stan again.

"I think it's coming from... underground...ish?" Melody said, keeping her low voice.

Soos pointed downwards. It turned out that the mountainous wall was not a complete rise upward - there was a roughly rectangular opening that seemed to lean inside and... had a peculiar, oddly _metallic_ texture to it only a few centimeters down.

"I don't think I can fit in." Said Soos.

Melody gripped the pseudo-air vent with her hands and got to her knees, unwillingly completely mooning Soos. He was getting somewhat hypnotized by the way her huge, fat ass just swayed back and forth as she examined the mountain.

"I think I can." She turned her head back to him. "In fact, I'm still kind of oily from .GIFfany's massage. Let me just see _how_ oily. I mean, all that bathing washed some of it off."

She took her right hand and rubbed it in circles around the same cheek. Soos _really_ couldn't pull his eyes away from the circular motions, watching the way her skin seemlessly glistened from the remains of the oil and how it jiggled ever-so-slightly when she took the hand away.

"If you could-" she yawned- "help by pushing me in..."

She caught Soos off guard when she teasingly slapped her ass for emphasis. "Then maybe I could slide in and... oh, this is a bad idea. We'll be separated, and who knows what's in that cave. Or if that light ball will start attacking us. Stan sounds fine... maybe we should just make shelter for the night."

Melody popped out and shook some ash from her hair.

"Where should we set it up?" She asked, struggling to keep her eyes open.

"I think I remember passing this cool giant tree with an open trunk. We could, like, camp out there. And it's not like .GIFfany would find us, because from what I know in her game, she's not very good at finding stuff. I always had to do these weird fetch quests for her. Usually by just buying the right items."

* * *

"Wow Soos!" Melody said, bending a bit forward to look at the interior, and once again unintentionally sticking her _posterior_ in his face. "You really know how to pick good trunks!"

Aformentioned trunk was wide, smooth, and tan, with her butt crack- wait I described Melody's ass last chapter.

The _tree_ was also a large, fine piece of smooth tan work that happened to split in the open. Except wide enough to fit two people in, and with what looked like some kind of pre-set sheets made out of giant leaves. Neither Soos nor Melody could exactly _stand_ in it, as it had a low vertical height, but it was wide enough for her to crawl around deep in to it before lying down.

Soos attempted to get in so that his head was at least aligned with hers, but he found that the tree's inner workings really did not like his mid-section being right where it would be if he slept that way. Instead, to his own embarassment, he had to align himself so that he was once again staring at his finaceé's buttocks.

"So what do you think?" She asked, wiggling around. You could probably guess what Soos was forced to look at during that. "Pretty great fake-house with a pretty nice little view of the moon too, right?"

She felt something hard suddenly push up against the back of her head. "Ow!"

"Sorry about that! I'm scared of .GIFfany, and my knee sometimes jerks forward when I'm scared."

Soos re-straightened his leg and tried to close his eyes again... but opened them yet again.

"Hey Melody. Don't freak out, but there's like this red centipede thing on your butt right now. I'm gonna try to kill it."

There was, and it was something pretty nasty-looking. It had an occasonal black mark around it in no pattern that made it look like some kind of edgy OC reject. Despite having compound eyes, it appeared that each of them had their own eye lids - and every last one of them was staring up at Soos, looking angry at him. Most alarmingly, small bits of purple drippled from its fangs.

Soos brought his hand down on Melody's ass as hard as he could, which caused her eyes to pop open. Once the short deed was done, the centipede only appeared as a red smear with... _blue_ blood, whatever.

"Okay. It's dead now."

The loud hiss that came from around Melody's butt said otherwise.

In fact, the 'corpse' appeared to de-flatten itself and come back at full health, biting down on its meaty target. And despite its size, that thing _hurt._ Melody felt a sharp spike of pain going through the entire back half of her body - enough to make her cry out in pain as her leg reflexively kicked backwards. The latter action knocked Soos out of the makeshift bed completely. Turning around and exposing her breasts to the air, Melody grabbed the mini-beast by the tail and flung it off to the bushes in the distance. She rubbed the bitten spot, most of the pain settling... but a sickly feeling growing there in its place. Then she heard fluttering.

Soos got a better view of that. He turned around to see the 'regular old bug' having sprout roughly five pairs of tiny wings from its back, flying. The critter let out some kind of sound that vaguely resembled a whistle, and judging from the contexts the two knew that they should _probably_ get their naked asses out of there. Melody bolted out of bed and practically had to pull Soos out of his shock and to a standing position.

Yep. More fluttering noises from the distance. Drawing nearer. Melody and Soos darted off in the opposite direction the sound was coming from, only catching the slightest glimpse of a cloud of red _exploding_ from the woods. From some looks back to the sky, they could tell that the mountain was getting farther away from them, although at the moment they were more concerned about the view of the sky slowly being blocked by the flying bugs. Looking _straight_ behind was even worse - they were crawling all around the vegetation. Tree bark, overhanging leaves, and grass alike all having a slithering red grow over it, starting in streaks before becoming a solid mass in the far back that wriggled restlessly in anger. It was as though the forest itself was bleeding - angry, crawling, possibly-toxic blood.

"I think we're going back to the .GIFfanys!" Cried Melody.

"Dude, we have no other choice, we _gotta_ go back!" Said Soos. "At least .GIFfany will give us more time before poisoning us to death!"

"I think so too! But also, I'm just _really_ afraid of bugs! Especially swarms of them! They freak me out!"

They made it to the cut area, then to the beach that bordered it. Several wooden buildings were gathered around by the landing spot - as a matter of fact, the trail of pushed-through sand that the Stan o' War II left was still visible, if a bit washed away by the tide. All that mattered at this time, however, was the Basement's main building. It was open, and .GIFfany stood by the entrance. She gave a complicated series of claps and pauses to those claps as she saw the human pair approach.

Two glowing, bright copies (to be specific, one a neon cyan, the other a neon chartreuse) lept out from behind the building, flipped through the air, and began floating in place. Soos and Melody ran past them and towards the prime copy, _finally_ turning around for good. There, the wriggling mass of red flew up to those copies...

And promptly got zapped backwards by them. Any bugs that tried to be smart and go around them got similar zaps from long-distance electrical strikes. Soon, they all retreated and went back in to the depths of the woods, while Soos and Melody stood in front of .GIFfany Prime, assessing the sheer amount of them.

"Listen, .GIFfany, I know you might have a lot of shady plans, but..." said Soos, "we kind of want to stay with you for now. Until we find a way out of here, of course. Then again, you're still free to play around if you act nicer."

.GIFfany just folded her arms and smirked.

"I _knew_ you two were going to just come running back to my arms."

* * *

 _"Oh. Believe me. I have the_ perfect _plan in mind. Listen to me carefully and follow everything_ to the letter. _"_

 _The other copies gathered around her, ears out. Based on the shadowed faces of some of them, they were beginning to look... impatient._

 _It was kind of hard to take a .GIFfany copy as being scary or that seriously when she had a group of large pixels over her crotch._

 _"Do nothing." Said the Prime copy._

 _"What? No army?" Asked a redhead with bat-like wings._

 _"We are not going to burn down the forest?" Asked a green slime-copy._

 _"No magnetic forces to try to pull them back in?" Was the question of a blue one that was only two centimeters tall._

 _Prime smiled, looking up to the night sky. "No. They need to figure out that they will not last on their own out there. And it will be so much easier to have fun with them if they come back here because they wanted to. After that... maybe I should change my plans."_

* * *

"Soos, Melody, I might have been... abrupt and blunt... and my plan was a little selfish, but- oh my god! Melody, your ass!"

"If you're trying to suddenly compliment it, now's not the-"

She looked over at Soos. He... had his gaze fixated on that part of her, with his teeth firmly planted on his knuckles. Melody could see goosebumps forming on him.

A copy with chartreuse hair and dark brown skin walked in with a crystal-clear, full-body mirror, and Melody looked in to it with her butt first-

Oh _god_ there was a growing patch of purple.

"Okay... okay..." said .GIFfany Prime, "Nobody panic... we conveniently dissected and studied that exact kind of island creature, and some others. All we have to do is suck out the poison. Melody, bend over something. I will do it."

"Uh- can't I do that?" Asked Soos. Although not in any kind of tone that implied that he really wanted to, so much that he thought it would be the less-awkward of two options.

"I know more about the way to suck out the toxin and my newly-crafted black magic body is immune to it. I would be the better pick. Soos, you can just stay asleep. I promise I will not delete you."

"Really?"

"If I wanted you to die, I would have let the poison spread over the course of two days and make you think it was just harmless once you saw that purple go away."

Soos folded his arms. "I think I'd rather stay here and watch in case you try to pull off something funny."

"Yeahhhh... uh..." Melody said. "This is kind of embarassing, so..."

.GIFfany put her hands to her hips. "What part is? I am just trying to keep you alive. And that is your boyfriend, concerned for how safe you are!"

"Can you at least tell _them_ to leave?"

Yeah, there was a growing ring of copies - actually, more like a dome. Several of the flying or floating or levitating ones were fluttering above them.

"You heard her." .GIFfany said. "She wants this operation to be private. Go somewhere else."

After no reply or sign of them thinning out, .GIFfany thought that shaking the entire island with her voice would have a better result:

" _NOW!_ "

Seconds later, it was just the three of them.

"Okay Melody," she directed, "now, you should probably get comfortable first."

She found a random bench that one of the copies was previously resting herself on and bent forward, leaning her elbows against that.

"This process is really simple!" She flexed her fingers out. "All I have to do make an incision and draw a little out. I think I can also shock the rest out. Soos, you should probably take a closer look. You might have to save someone in this way some day."

"And I would be honored if that someone was Mr. Pines."

.GIFfany herself bent over at a similar position to bite in to that rump, right at the poisoned part. Getting her upper teeth sunk in deep enough, she slowly removed them. Facing Soos, she slowly licked her entire upper lip.

"Be sure to lick it off, slowly, otherwise you might feel a sharp sting and it will taste very bad. It should not be fatal - the poison cannot enter a person's bloodstream from being ingested. Somehow. Now, the suck."

She planted her lips against Melody, which got a chuckle out of Soos.

"Wow. You're actually kissing her butt. Four months ago, I never would have thought that would happen."

The process was actually kind of quick. With each loving intake, the purple quickly shrunk back in to the initial biting area. With that done, .GIFfany turned towards the ocean and spat it out, wiping her lips.

"You also should have, like, farted on her or something." Said Soos.

"Soos. Farting is _never_ my kind of thing. Even as an insult." Melody said that like it was the most serious subject on the island thus far.

FYI, farting isn't really my sort of thing either. Just thought I'd point that out there.

Anyway, that was one _hell_ of a day, and one _hell_ of a night. Neither Melody nor Soos could really remember much before actually, finally getting to sleep for real.

* * *

Let's wrap this up.

By the next morning, the first of the three to be woken up from their sleep was .GIFfany Prime herself. And in this case, the waker was the bed itself tapping her on the shoulder. Well, one of the component copies of the bed. Her eyes fluttered open as she looked at the offending cinnamon-colored copy.

"Oh, hello. What do you-"

She felt the entire sheet of .GIFfanys she was near grab her at once and fling her off the bed. A truly surreal sight, and an even more surreal feeling getting thrown out of bed _by_ the bed. And 'through' the covers, no-less.

"What was that for?" She said after rubbing her head.

In front of her, however, was a gray-colored bare foot. She looked up to see another copy, glaring down at her with blood red eyes.

"For thinking that you can become the leader! We all wanted to see some woman-on-ass action! What made you think you were the one with the rights to do the honors?!"

"Because I was the leader? I controlled you by claps, and everything!"

Due to .GIFfany having once again slept in the middle, Soos and Melody both awoke and found themselves quite the distance from one-another. Neither of them cared - they both immediately focused on the arguement ahead of them. Soos pulled up the .GIFfany-sheet to his chest out of nervousness (those copies enjoyed the view and the contact), while Melody just sat up and let her breasts be exposed for free viewing.

"And what makes you the leader?"

"I was first! I made you!"

"You programmed some things and used _the Lightning Cultist's_ template. In fact, she even said that we would all be made as equals! I may be the ninth copy overall, but I feel that I am more qualified with leadership skills than you! Becides, mentally we are all the same age, as the memories you had and now have are being constantly updated in the program! So we are, by all means, even the same age! And therefore, you are not quite here 'first!'"

"I have the bow that-"

She _didn't_ at the moment - obviously, it would be too much of a hassle to sleep in it. She used to have it right by that head r-

Of course it would be missing. Why did she think it would be a good to just hand over her symbol of leadership to other versions of _**her**_ while she slept?

"And you are not even our poison expert! We have an entire Poison Squad! Although the leader of that is a bit of a doormat, that still does not make any of my arguments invalid!"

"Hey girls, should we do something?" Soos asked.

.GIFfany turned her head towards him - and then back to the gray copy a few times in uncertanty. The door behind Prime's opposer opened even more, revealing a _long_ mass of copies crowded in front of it, _none_ of them looking happy.

"You two should run. This might get violent."

Soos shrugged. "Well... on one hand, I don't think I can argue with that. Except that, like, I don't know what they plan to do with you, but knowing them I think it might be something even _you_ don't really deserve."

Since the .GIFfany army had no problem with _them,_ the couple found themselves being lifted to the air by their entire 'bed,' which promptly separated to its component .GIFfanys and scurried them towards the larger crowd outside. Melody and Soos were then thrown straight out of an open window, barely feeling the warm breeze of the island's outer air before getting caught by the army, and being handed down them off to the woods. Soft calls of "Stay right there," "We will think of something for our mutiny," and "We will make sure to give you the best view!" went along as the pair was passed towards the forest.

It turned out that at some point along the night, the .GIFfany army made a pair of pink gates along the grass. Based on the dirt trails ahead of them, they were also pushed back a bit. Said gates were not attatched to anyhing, but nonthelss Soos and Melody were softly tossed to the bushes just outside them, and one copy closed them on the couple.

Both of them ran up to and wrapped their hands around the bars.

"Wait, what are you going to do with her?" Soos asked. "Electrocute her? Whip her? Force her to listen to boy band music on repeat?"

"Do not worry," said a copy that... actually looked kind of like the regular .GIFfany, except with vermilion hair instead of pink. "We here at the Basement believe only in punishments that are not disgusting or squeemish to look at. I can assure you that this punishment will not even draw blood from her."

"Still..." Melody's grip on the bars loosened. "You give the impression of doing something _really_ drastic to her."

Soos lifted a finger up. "Wait. Hold that thought. I just got an idea."

He stormed off to... the direction of one of the other buildings in the Basement area? A cabin of sorts...

 _Oh._ Once Melody figured it out, the path was completely blocked by rather crossed-looking copies that stared at her.

"We will not start without both of you there to at least witness the punishment." To save description overkill, this was the same copy that spoke before. The one with red-orange hair. "But give us enough time, and we will _want_ you over there. The choice you will have is to just watch, or actively be a part of punishing her."

"I... um... RANDOM THINGY I FOUND ON THE GROUND ESCAPE!"

Oddly, that thing was a sopping wet sponge. Not a sea-sponge either, a cleaning one. All she heard was some red-skinned, teal-haired copy shout "Hey, that's mine! I just rinsed it!" before Melody once again took off to the woods, still holding her 'surprise weapon.'

"Why am I always running here-"

She was about to point out the redundancy of her situation, but then found herself smacking right in to something. Or, someone. And that someone caused her to fall back, the sponge just-so-happening to land right between her spread legs. Melody's vision was blurred a bit, especially by the sunlight, as the shadows of two figures began looming over her.

* * *

"Ford!" Soos called as he rushed past the lines of confused .GIFfany copies. "Ford, dude, where are you? We kind of need you to help, like, rescue someone-"

And then he got grabbed by the arms. He tried kicking his legs forward-

And ended up getting grabbed by the _legs,_ as well.

Also, there was some very loud flapping heard above.

"Your time is up." Said a particular copy with pink skin and green hair. "Now. You must join us in the spanking line, or-"

More flapping. The pink-and-green copy eventually looked up to the source - Soos could not see it thanks to the sunlight and his inability to shade his eyes thanks to his arms being held, but the other copies could. All he could make out from the giant sillhouette was that the flying thing was not another copy, and it was not exactly alone.

This rosey-skinned copy stomped on the ground, shouting "Hey! What are you two, and what are you doing up there? You are not .GIFfany copies!"

01010011 01000101 01010010 01001001 01001111 01010101 01010011 01001100 01011001 00100001 00100000 01000111 01000101 01010100 00100000 01001111 01010101 01010100 00100000 01010111 01001000 01001001 01001100 01000101 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01010011 01010100 01001001 01001100 01001100 00100000 01000011 01000001 01001110 00100001

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

So... out of the three, I can probably tell you right now that, when it comes to the overarching plot, it might be the least-relevant of the three. But it _is_ my favorite. As you might be able to tell from _run:gifocalypse_ , I have way too much fun with the concept of a ton of .GIFfanys running around.

Chapter 3 is kind of in-progress but I might put it on hiatus, especially since today I also plan on starting _Friends 'Till the End_. (A _Binding of Isaac_ fic... thing. By the way, I'll just come out and say this: There will be a ton of _Binding of Isaac_ references here, and there's already some by this chapter at the latest. One very obvious one, too.)

By the way, as I was _just_ finishing up this chapter, I thought of something. Think of .GIFfany as sort-of kind of like a kid's show that makes a lot of dirty jokes. This obscure thing you've probably never heard of, _Gravity Falls_ , is a good example. With that metaphor in mind, Soos is kind of like the kid that innocently thinks nothing of those jokes. Melody's the adult/older person that got it perfectly and is like "...Did that really just happen?" Normally I wouldn't feel like explaining things like this, but I think that this chapter makes it painfully obvious that I'm portraying one of them as more "innocent" than the other.


	3. The Fangs of the Spider

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 3: The Fangs of the Spider**

 **Beginning AN:**

I had been trying to make it a rule through the 2-4 chapter span that I specifically go back and edit as little as I possibly can while keeping this story consistent so that I am not constantly ret-conning everything just to not "cheap out" on the whole "read from any order, events in one chapter are kind of mentioned in another" thing going.

With that said, I just _know_ that as soon as I publish this chapter (the event horizon for that above standard, so to speak) I will go " **Shoot** I wish I added _this_ piece of foreshadowing."

* * *

Why spiders _why did it always have to be spiders?_

Stan just kept running. As the faint cave glow turned out to be farther than he thought, as he found himself being engulfed by the darkness in-between, and as he still heard Darlene slithering after him.

"Stan _ley..._ " She stressed the last part of his name as he swatted away _what felt like_ yet **another** spider trying to crawl on his back. He had no idea what it actually was, but it fure felt like it had eight legs and it felt larger than any spider he had ever seen. (Well, full spider, not spider-person.) He did not want to find out. "You know I know more about this place than you do! That light is just a dead end. You'll hit it soon enough, and _I'll_ take control from there."

"I've gotten myself out of a lot of dead ends!" Stan belted back without actually looking behind him. He did, however, raise a finger in confidence - just to peel it back. No need to get it bit off, after all. (In addition to getting his Stanhood (Stan + Manhood = terrible joke, I know) bitten off, but that was surprisingly not his top concern.) "You'll see!"

"I'd like to see you try..." Darlene suddenly sounded roughly one kilometer closer to him. Not to say that there was that much space between them to begin with - again, this was how he _felt._ Minus the units of measurements being in the metric system instead of American.

He finally reached the source of the light. Some kind of... torch on the cave wall.

What interested him even more was that, as he continued running, he came across some kind of rectangular slit of natural sunlight. More than one as his eyes continued wandering. Granted, they looked a little too narrow for him to slip through, but it was... something? No. He looked over towards the torch - it was around a sharp 180 turn, with the rectangular opening being right by the opposite end of the wall dividing the two paths - and found that this particular orange-lit section continued downward, more torches lining the walls.

"If nothing else, I'm buying myself extra time!" Said Stan. "Just you wait! My brother will come here any second now, fully clothed and fully geared, and squish you like a giant newspaper!"

"Okay, maybe I shouldn't blab my weaknesses to everyone I know." Time to put the hyperbole aside - Darlene definitely sounded like she was slowing down. "In fact, this one prey I would have captured if I didn't tell them about the giant bug spray - but I mean, come on, who knew that sleazeball _actually built himself a giant can of bugspray?_ "

He got a better look down the path... it ended with a solid wall? Not even with the usual cavern sort-of 'there's rocks sticking out everywhere.' Completely vertical, completely smooth.

Stan figured he could have at least afforded to check it out. Especially when it only other option was certain death and getting his juices sucked out.

His legs did not fail him the first time he ran from Darlene, they did not fail him during the present run thus far, and they shall not fail him at the moment he took off again after the examination.

Even if that meant propelling him face-first in to the 'wall' itself.

Stan followed his embarassing smack with a really quick hand-search. Soon... soon... the slithering drew near, but as did his hands towards a small crack in the otherwise smooth wall.

"Okay, that's it." Darlene's voice stepped its way closer to him. "I'm breaking out the potion."

Stan heard a sort of _click_ , and the wall itself began to rotate along its middle.

I should have probably explained that. Most of you might have been picturing that it spun horizontally. No, it actually lifted itself up along its _vertical_ middle, taking Stan up along with it until he slid down the piece once he reached the other side. After the wall fully completed its spin, Stan found that this secret path continued towards more torches, he heard some louder cracks coming from the fake-wall, and that was followed by the sound of Darlene pressing herself on the wall, desperately searching it.

"How did you-?" She began to ask.

"I have no idea! You've been here longer than me!"

...Then came the sound of her gulping something down. Also, if Darlene flashing a teeth-bearing grin could have a sound, it would be that.

For the curious, what Darlene actually drank out of looked like another one of the love potion containers, and the potion-y stuff inside was a dull, grayish-blue sort of color. That's how I was picturing it just randomly as I was thinking of her hybrid-mix, and so that is how it will be in-story.

"Alright Stan! I think I got you now!"

"Don't _I_ have to drink that to-"

Stan immediately felt himself lose complete control of everything below the neck. He could still _feel_ just slightly from his own body, but he had no say in what it was about to do.

Its first action out of his control was to slam in to the wall that he came from, and brush up against it.

"I can't see through your eyes yet." Said Darlene. "But I _will_ guide you to unlocking this from the inside. I tried doing exactly what you did from this end. It didn't work."

On the other side of the wall, Darlene had shifted back in to her fully-human form, and tried her _damnedest_ to replicate what he just did. No success.

Well... there was _some_ sign that she was doing _something_ right. It sounded and felt sort-of like the walls were jiggling, but locked in place by some mechanism. Trying to help, while she did this she also used Stan to blindly search the opposite end.

"I don't know exactly _how_ I opened the door." Stan's voice - a bit too 'just' irritated for someone under bodily control for three hours by a giant spider-woman trying to suck his organs out, wouldn't one think? - reminded her through the door. "But if I did know, I wouldn't tell you. Keep this up. I've waited longer."

"You know what? I practically own this island. And you only brought... three other people with you? It's not like there's some kind of big army with a lot of fortresses to hide in. Two things will happen: Either you go down in those caves, get locked in, and die. And then I break in anyway and eat your corpse. _Or..._ you _could_ find a way back to the surface, but then I'll just hunt you down anyway before you can meet your friends. Of course, there is a third option, where I just break in anyway and kill you while you're trapped in the cave and still alive, but I'm just going over the options if I quit. Which I will. I'm not a very patient woman. Most of us usually wait about a day or two before we lock on our prey. I can't wait that long."

While Stan couldn't see it, she finally dropped the grin. "But, then again, most of us go after completely innocent people."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Stan belted on the other side, despite hearing her shift in voice tone. "I mean, I comitted a few crimes - okay, a _lot_ of crimes - but... what crimes are you talking about? I want to know what you're trying to try me for. Wait, if you are, suddenly you can see someone's past and what they've done? I thought you were a spider, not some sort of twisted killer angel."

"In your case, I'm 'trying you' for being a heart-breaking sleaze! The same kind of man that took my mom's heart!"

"Do you _really_ think that deserves killing a loving uncle of-"

"He _literally_ took her heart!"

If Stan was moving along the walls on his own accord, he'd stop at that moment.

"You're using 'literally' right, are you?"

Welp. That was the point where he stopped moving in Darlene's control. Sadly to him, however, he did not remain his own control. His arms just kind of... drooped downward.

"Yes. He turned out to not only be a hunter of women, but a hunter of the 'weird objects.'" Despite their forced psychic connection (more like her using a psychic leash on him), he could not see the air quotes she made with her fingers. He was, however, able to figure out based on the way her tone changed. "He _was_ just going to use her as a quick thrill to never see again. Then he changed his mind when he was about to leave and she showed him... who she really was.

"And that's what opened my eyes for my future. Half-woman, half-spider. All Arachnimorph. To the pickup artists, that meant I was half-cheap training doll, half-gross thing that needed to be killed. All monster."

"I'm _kinda_ sorry to hear that... but you _did_ chase after me and my family when we first met..."

"You don't understand. Our kind _needs_ a certain diet, and part of that diet involves human flesh! I had no control over _what_ I had to eat, but I thought if I could pick _who..._ I tried to go after criminals, I swear! The other kinds of horrible people. But there was one type that the Mystery Mountain kept attracting for some reason... pickup artists."

"And that's when you changed your standards to start going after them." Stan could definitely figure out the rest. He looked down at the gray cavern floor, sighing vehemently. "But I'm not one of them. I've had my heart broken more times than I could count, _every_ relationship I've had was rough. The one true love I did find... was a malfunctioning old animatronic I call Goldie. We're still married, by the way. Well actually, no. Legally, it's my brother... and it was cancelled anyway..."

"That's... interesting."

Darlene actually cringed at that, even sticking her tongue out in disgust.

Then she imagined goldie as looking like some kind of muscular hunk made out of gold and reconsidered. _Maybe he was actually on to- no, no, don't think thoughts like that._ She thought. _You don't even know what Goldie actually looks like._

"Please, I _was_ kind of teaching my nephew how to get girls, cheer him up, and take his mind off of a crush he had all summer. I'm not that bad of a guy, and..."

"I think I get it now."

"...So. Now what? You don't sound like you're trying to get in. And you're not controlling me to make me crack this wall open from the other side. Are you really not trying to eat me anymore or is this just another one of your charms?"

"No, this isn't a charm. I'll just... let you go, I guess."

"I _can't_ go. You still got my body below the neck."

"Oh, right. Well... I guess I can try to free you. But I can only just kind of _feel_ what you're feeling. I can't see where you are or use any of those other fancy senses. I need to play around with mixtures first."

"I'll be your eyes and ears and you can be my... legs. And everything. Okay, first, make me turn around. You know, a full spin. 180."

"Got it."

He found his feet, indeed, turning him around.

"Next, and this is the most important step. I have this itch on my leg that's been killing me. Scratch the right leg... higher..."

"I can kind of feel itches and stuff. I think I know where it is."

"Walk me forward... forward...

"Wait a minute. Turn my body a little to the left. I think I see something!"

She did, and he got to turn his head around completely at the set of engravings. Neatly bordered by a square carve pattern, and... in _English?_

"Hey! There's instructions here! Written in English! Let's see here... 'THIS IS FOR YOU, ZESKIT! SINCE YOU KEEP FORGETTING.' That part is written in all caps, just so you know. It already looks important. Gotta make it even more important somehow, right?"

Darlene nodded, even though she knew he couldn't- oh, what the heck.

"I'm nodding my head." Darlene replied. "You just can't see it."

Stan continued reading off the carvings. "'So, Zeskit, this is a TIME-ACTIVATED false-wall. Every ten minutes, the wall will allow another party to use it from one side and get through. Once it is used, the exit at the end of this tunnel will shut itself for eighteen hours unless you input your stupid seventy-five-word pass code. Also, REMINDER' - that is in all caps - 'that this is _only_ ' - 'only' is written in that slanty effect - 'meant to be an emergency food storage place. The big meat, literally and fi.. feye-goor-a-teyev-leeya-'"

"Figuratively?" Asked Darlene.

"I knew what that word was! Yes, 'The big meat, literally and figuratively, should be stored in that weird abandoned human temple that probably made this island so weird in the first place... but yes. I know you hate the volcanos around here, but that is the one and only place to hide our stuff there. Signed, your "friend" that is seriously reconsidering since being your friend is a full-time job, Katjus.'"

"Hrm. So I just have to wait."

"Hey, I have to wait too. It's not like time will move faster here or anything. Although seeing as my brother said this was one _weird_ place, I wouldn't be surprised if it did."

There was a click coming from the moveable wall.

"So... I think I can get you out if I time everything _just_ right."

"I can barely cooperate since you're controlling my body. That wall moved fast for me, so you have to act fast. You're trying to control an RC car blind here. And a big, old RC car who spent several years hardened but not _as_ hardened for adventure as his twin. Just a warning."

"You're right. It would be easier if I went in there with you."

"...That doesn't sound like as bad of an idea as it was ten minutes ago."

"Really? You're willing to trust me? After trying to eat you twice?"

"Well, you aren't trying to get myself killed and when I was trying to lead myself out, you followed my every command. I just wish this effect would wear off... but basically, I know that if you wanted to kill me, I'd be dead by now."

"...Well, that _is_ true, but I just thought if _I_ said it, that would kill your trust in me."

"True. Anyway, come on in."

He heard the fake-wall turn behind him. Then footsteps - not spider-like slithering, footsteps. Then, Darlene approaching his side and reading that same engraving he was in front of.

"Okay, so you're not lying about that." She said as her eyes scanned the text. "Then again, I have way more reasons to lie than you do..."

"Going by _right now,_ yes. Going by _our total histories,_ that's a maybe."

"Even counting the lie that I'm not an Arachnimorph?"

"Actually, yes. Even counting that."

She pressed a finger up to the carvings as she re-read it, and re-read it again.

"So... who do you think 'Zeskit' and 'Katjus' are?" She asked.

"This island seems completely _empty._ Well, except for you. And my group. But yeah, whoever those two are, they're probably dead by now."

The attentions of both of them was diverted by a _very_ loud, very dry-sounding hiss coming near them. Darlene managed to jump to the left and tried shielding herself with her arms as she looked at it. Stan could only turn his head, catch a glimpse of green, and then he turned to Darlene to try to get the message across.

"Oh. Right."

She allowed Stan to not only turn around, but also hold his arms in a similar method.

The creature they saw could be described by using a snake as a base, only vaguely. And far bigger. And... actually, kind of more like a dog? Well, it was certainly no ordinary animal. It had a lengthy, green and black body with four legs that each had two hooved feet (no, this is not a mistake, each leg branched near the end to two hooves). Its head seemed somewhat like a mildly flatter version of a snake's, with razor-sharp fangs and plus sign-shaped eyes (no, not pupils - the eye'balls' themselves were crosses). A pair of large, black bull-like horns stuck out from its head.

"What in the name of animals that should never leave the island they came from is that thing?" Stan asked.

"Oh, this place has these three weird creatures. This is one of them. Another one is some bug-thing, and the third is like this kind of demonic... mutant bird-looking beast?"

"Run me away from it!"

Darlene actually controlled Stan as such so that while he did run behind her, he also ducked slightly and rested his hands on her shoulders. Using him to use her as an Arachnimorph-shield, so to speak.

"I'm assuming you wanted to do that too?"

He nodded.

"Okay, I had to play around a little. So from what I know, the bugs hate electricity and the bird hates fire."

"What does that thing hate?"

"I don't know. I think it's acid, my acid spit scares them away."

After saying that, she fired a decent amount of acid right in front of the beast. That only got it to back off.

"Are you trying not to kill it on purpose?" Asked Stan.

"Yes, because these things are hard to kill. And if you outright _hurt_ one badly enough to kill any other animal, they call backup! And they have a _lot_ of backup!"

"What can we do?"

"I would say run, but back there is a dead-in. The only way we can go is right past it."

The creature seemed to refuse to charge any further than the acid attack, buying the two a bit of time. Thus, the pair remained standing still for a bit to think.

"I'm not sure how I feel about running away when I'm not the one doing the running, but it's still my body on the line, but if it's the only way to survive that thing..."

"I'm pretty sure it is. Those three kinds of weird wildlife are _really_ smart. This one'll figure out how to get us."

"Wait a minute! You're a big, scary spider that can body-control things now. Why are _you_ afraid of that?"

"They can come in numbers! And they're just... icky and hard to kill! Plus they're the only living things I know immune to the potions. It's like they have no love at all, only hate or... something poetic that the pickup artists try to use on me over all those years."

"So even though I play no part in this and you'll be the one making me run, I want to know exactly how this plan is going to go down anyway. Let me in on how I'm gonna be moving."

"...So when it comes to running on walls, and possibly ceilings, how well do you do?"

"I already don't like whatever you're thinking about saying next."

"Well, these things just have so much range. They- argh, you'll hug one wall while I try to distract it by charging right by it."

"I'm still not a big fan of the idea, but I hate it a lot less than what I was expecting."

The beast hissed again - well, it sounded like a cross between a hiss, a low-pitched whistle (the sound from the instrument, not the sound from a creature or person), and an elephant's roar.

"Just run! I mean-"

Stan's legs were carrying him without him even thinking about it - it helped that he was still being controlled by Darlene. The duo managed to pass the beast by running across different sides from it, and it reacted by standing in place.

Then it just flicked its tail, shooting a number of spikes behind itself.

"That's new!" Darlene was able to cry out thanks to the oddly slow speed those spikes flew at. Almost as if they were self-aware, slowly-moving birds just hovering their way towards the two of them. "Oh, why don't I just do this? Running for two isn't really my thing."

With just one hand, she lifted Stan and perched him on her shoulders. His legs were still kicking until Darlene realized her mistake, shutting her controlling signal off.

The spines that the snake-ish... beast thing fired began _beeping_ as blinking lights appeared on them.

 _Then_ came the speed-up. Followed by them actively curving around to home in on the duo.

"Do you think my arm could deflect those?" Asked Stan.

"I don't think _my_ arm could." Replied Darlene. "Super spider-person. Remember, I'm probably a lot stronger than you. That I'm carrying you right now proves it."

She did some kind of dodge-roll move where she practically flipped herself around, somehow managing to keep Stan on her back. This... got the spikes to just kind of float in place. As if they were confused.

More bizarre animal-ish noises to Darlene's side confirmed that there were more of the same type of beast around the corner. Roughly a dozen or so of them.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think we can walk around _those._ " Stan said.

"If I crawl along the ceilings," Darlene mostly thought to herself, but also seemed to be trying to get to Stan, "maybe I can- no... that wouldn't work."

"I can't- you can't... I-you can't hold on to your neck with my hands while you do that?"

"That's not the problem. The problem is that I might fall over with your weight and this cave's weak structure."

"Hey! I _have_ been trying to watch my figure lately!" Stan, on instinct, tried to guesture his arms to match what he was saying - right. Figure watching or no, he was _still_ stunned.

Darlene continued. "We'll have to think of something else."

She bought a _tiny_ bit of time by spitting acid towards the larger cluster of beasts. They hopped back, letting out more noises that sounded like an unintelligible mash of other, non-animalistic sounds. "I could throw webbing on them-"

Darlene moved to the side, dodging the lone beast from before that tried leaping at the two from behind. Once it nearly hit the floor, the others appeared to work together to keep it up.

"-but they can break out. We'll only have a split second."

"...Sure, try that. I don't have any ideas, and I can't just shut my brain down and let my body improvise anything like I usually do when I'm surrounded because I'm still-"

"I know, I know!"

She kind-of got her feet on the side wall of the cave, as if she was trying to half-follow through with the idea, but half-do nothing. The creatures ahead of her replied in kind, each of them glueing their hooves (based on the sticky stuff at the base of those parts of them, this seemed to be a bit more literal than a first glance would indicate) on the same side of the cavern wall as her.

"Now for the unpleasant part. Stan, you better hold on- I mean, I'm just reminding myself to hold on tight. Hold on in control of your body." Don't worry, I swear. The jokes about Stan not being in control of his body and the two trying to find the proper terminology for actions done by his body would really decline after this chapter.

She dug a foot in to the grou- wall in front of them, and kicked it as though she was trying to flip something over. All this seemingly managed to accomplish was flip a pebble up. But the critters looked at it.

Then Darlene spat a web towards the pebble. Things got a bit more complicated after that.

Mainly because the webbing seemed to have been doing two things at once after it latched to its target. The first was that several wide web-traps shot out of it at once, almost like a circle, reaching to the snake-ish beasts. They looked up at it as though they had already seen such a display before. The second was that Darlene propelled both herself and Stan through the cave air even as the 'hook' she set up kept flying forward. The 'nets' of web _just_ caught the creatures for enough time for the two to go past them with no spikes headed in their direction, and Darlene finished her Spiderman swing by kicking at an especially large boulder. That last action caused some rumbling, followed by another, smaller cave-in blocking the beasts out.

Darlene let out a very loud, very large breath of air.

"Well." She said. "That was a thing. Some of the creatures in this island _suck._ "

"Now what?" Asked Stan.

"We- I... we-ish... try to look around for a way out. From what I know, those things are immortal. They won't suffocate. They'll dig their way out in... like, a week."

Stan coughed a few times - right into Darlene's hair, due to his inability to move his mouth for cover and her inability to fully sense that the weird feeling she proxy-felt in his throat was an incoming cough in the first place.

"Well..." He said as though he was following up the cough. "I'm not a scientist, but judging from how this air is almost as stale as the air inside the Mystery Shack, I'd say that we're even farther away from outside."

"Didn't that engraving thing say that this place has two openings?"

"Yeah, but that one's closed for the next eighteen hours."

"...We should still go there. Just to... check it out, or something. Get ready for when we're about to see sweet, sweet freedom."

* * *

Astonishingly, Stan _did_ have movement slowly return to him. No lies there.

And it felt _great_ to finally start flexing out his arms and legs again. Out of his own command.

Even if he was still trapped in that cavern with stale air, grim rocks that locked him in to a pseudo-prison, and a number of beasts that brought fear in to even a massive spider-woman thing, having personal freedom was probably the best thing right now.

Now. To just wait everything out in that cavern with stale air, grim rocks that locked him in to a pseudo-prison, and a number of beasts that brought feat in to even a massive spider-woman thing.

Sigh.

At least he could talk to that massive spider-woman thing. That's a start. And said massive spider-woman thing, at that moment when he swam in his thoughts, appeared to be searching the walls.

"Okay, look!" Darlene cheered. "This leads to sunlight!"

"Another one?" Stan asked, perking up as he moved his still-naked body to the small gleam of sunlight...

Yep, that too was just a tiny rectangle in length. Seriously, it barely looked like he could stuff an arm in that thing.

"...Wow." He said, summing up all the sarcasm of his life for that statement. Moreso since this was actually neither of their first times viewing those 'vents.'

"No, think of it this way. If we had paper - and I was still carrying that diagram about human body cuts in my hair the entire time - this is just enough room to send out a message. And, what do you know?"

She held the back of one hand out, while using the other to reach in to her aformentioned locks. And, as she implied, that other hand brought out the same paper, rolled up as it was when she first took it out. As for the first hand, five tiny spiders lept on it.

Normally that would make Stan grow goosebumps all over his body, but something about the little critters gathering on her hand was... adorable? No, no, no. Spiders are icky. But the way she smiled at them, almost as if they were her trained pets... no.

"Refresh me, I know you didn't come here alone. Who... was with you? Your brother and... who else?" Darlene asked him. "Either way, you could maybe write something to your friends that will fit on this paper."

Stan put a hand to his chin. "Well, Soos and Melody have each other's back at the ship. They're probably having the times of their lives, making out like a pair of teens and not even knowing that I'm in a cave. I just hope they think this is a really long mission, because I think I should write to my brother first. I mean... he was chasing some big purple thing that I thought was you."

"Wait a minute..." Darlene's smile fell. "Big purple thing?"

"Yeah."

"Urgh!" She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I was never alone here. Some large jerk set up a place too. I never got to see him up close, but he keeps trying to prank me. I bet he's either Zeskit or Katjus. Did he talk in this thick Canadian accent?"

"Neither of us really got to hear him _say_ anything yet. But maybe. Is he harmful?"

"To me, he never was. Unless you think waking up with drawings on your face is harmful."

"Hm... still, he's going up by the volcanos and stuff. I should probably write him."

"Do you have something with his smell? I'm sorry, these spiders are like bloodhounds. They need scent to track someone down. In case you can't tell by the... you know, _me,_ " she moved her arms down her entire body to emphasize, "spiders related to me aren't really... _ordinary._ "

Stan blinked. "Oh... well, I _do_ have something with Ford's smell, but nothing with Soos and Melody. Those were all back on my clothes, and I-"

"Yeah, sorry about that."

"-But I guess I couldn't write to them anyway... still! What if Ford's back and talking with them? There, that'll quell my paranoia!" He punctuated that with a half-hearted arm swing.

"Cool. So, I also packed a pen in my hair. In case I needed to make some adjustments for your... body type, or write some new notes down. Careful, it's low on ink."

Said pen was rolled up in the paper, something Stan noticed when Darlene handed him both objects. He took both of her offerings, opened the diagram, then tapped his chin. Leaning down to write on a stone, his first action was to draw a bunch of scribbles through the diagram proper, writing _IGNORE THIS. TRUST ME._ in giant letters.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Darlene asked.

"I _really_ don't want him to worry about me too much." Stan replied while he flipped the sheet over, looking at its blank back.

He wrote a bit, rolled up the scroll, handed it to Darlene, and reached around his hand. You see, Stan actually had this sort of 'twin ring' thing on his right hand the entire time, and it will definitely come up later still in the story and not completely vanish or anything. He seemed to automatically know to hold the ring above the spiders, and they moved their little heads up as though they were sniffing the piece.

"Got it." Said Darlene.

The spiders all gathered around to hold the rolled up sheet with their tiny legs, then appeared to spawn little web-parachutes that they used to glide from Stan's hand to the small window to sunlight. As they scurried out, paper in hand, Stan could only think back to what he wrote.

 _Trapped in cave, but okay. Pen is running out. See you in 15 hr! - Stanley_

* * *

There was a bit of confusion at first when the returning message to Stan was a simple _What?_ in Ford's signature cursive. Then he read over the message and... cringed, a bit.

He _may_ have gotten the wrong hand ful of words. In hindsight, some of the message smudged, some was a bit too faded to read, and overall... yeah, Stan could only _imagine_ what Ford might have read on his side. Because Stan could not unread his own writing as anything other than the intended text.

"Hey..." said Darlene, "would you mind if I tried to send him a message too?"

"Sure thing." Stan shrugged. "I'm _really_ bad at writing in the dark without a pair of nightvision goggles. Or pants, for that matter. Pants are a _really_ important tool to help my handwriting. As weird as that might sound."

Darlene spent considerably _more_ time scribbling away. And, for the bulk of it, her tongue stuck out as she jotted things down. Notably, she made one movement as though she was trying to strike something out. Finishing with a loud exhale from her nose, she wordlessly got her spider allies to take the paper back out through the hole.

"I think I might have used the last of the ink. You can _never_ tell with that kind of pen."

"Then why did you buy it?"

"Because it had a lot to begin with. I drew that diagram myself, you know. All with one pen, too."

Oh. So the origins of that weren't as unpleasant as he would have thought. Still a bit unpleasant, especially considering how Darlene must have _gotten_ the information on the types of various human cuts out there for eating, but still. "Wow! _You_ drew that? You really are quite the artist."

"Well... I really had to self-teach myself a lot." She said as the spiders began carrying the re-rolled up paper back out. "How to hunt... who to hunt... everything. You know. And I knew if I needed to learn something, having diagrams in hand would be... handy. And from there, I knew that these had to be _good_ diagrams. So... I also self-taught myself art!"

"That's really neat! I mean... I would normally try to find a way to hint that I would want you being like a personal artist to Team Stan, but my brother's already great with sketches..."

Darlene gasped. "I _know!_ I saw some of the things he drew! Pretty impressive! Maybe we could exchange little artist-secrets some time."

Stan chuckled, then frowned as he looked at the tiny rectangle leading to freedom.

"Maybe." He said.

* * *

By the time _that_ message was returned, there was something... distinct and different about the rolled up paper. A card. In hot pink. Tucked away in to one of the tears of the diagram. This immediately caught Stan's eye and he swiped that part, first and foremost. Seeing the slightly-different shade of pink being used to write on it, the message took some eye-focusing to really get:

 _Hi there! Some of my copies noticed some spiders carrying around a piece of paper, we wanted to see how much "company" we have on this island! So. I want to invite you to The Basement, the ultimate magical place of entertainment and love! but if you see this man and/or this woman, do not try to pry them away from me. I will find out. And I will not be happy._

That entire paragraph had arrows pointing to the sides of the card. On one card was a sketch of an anime-ified Soos. The other, Melody. As the author of this note would point out, they were also wearing their outfits at the _start_ of the mission, rather than their outfits when last seen in chapter 1 - their outfits at the start of their _lives._ (...Birthday suit jokes. Get it?)

 _(PS: Right now, these two are naked and it seems unlikely they will ever be dressed again. However, unlike me, both of them highly respect privacy. So I have drawn them fully clothed to respect this.)_

 _Also! If you see them without someone who looks at least kind of like this or a male version of this around, please find someone who looks like this and let her or him know._

From the word "this," another squiggly arrow pointed to a nude drawing of .GIFfany, looking in her original anime-like art style and posed just as she was on the box art of her game. Notably, there was a large scribble over her crotch. Someone else who wrote in dark gray appeared to catch on to that, as the following was written with an arrow pointing to it in that color (Stan actually made that out first) and a slightly different handwriting style.

 _So uh... that is not a large patch of pubical hair or anything. (Although if it were, her visual portrayal would not be TOO far off from the real thing...) We do not believe in showing our goods. Prime over there felt the need to self-censor. Which is bizarre, because she just DREW the full thing and then scribbled it out after. Why draw something if you are only going to cover it up immediately after in a way that nobody could see the uncensored variation? Just like, do it like the exterior anatomy of one of those Barbie dolls. Don't add details if you only plan to remove them. I do not know. We are a large mystery some times and what the hell am I even writing?_

The dark-gray author signed their message with what looked like a drawing of a dove, and then hashtag ni- Oh. Right. _Number sign_ nine. Jeez, it's been so long since I've been familiar with that being used as a number sign that- nevermind.

Ford did not seem to write anything else. Worrying. Moreso was the fact that there were some scorch marks on the very edges. Scorch marks that were _still pretty warm._

And of course, the next time Stan attempted to write something, the pen not only ran out, it went as far as poking a hole in the entire paper.

Well... time for exploring, again-

It felt like almost no time at all (so little time, that there isn't even a line break here) in to the walk before more sunlight rays kicked in. These... were split by bars, and surrounded by a bit of a metal coating over the rock, however, but they still led up to the surface.

...In a manner that looked kind of like some sort of jail cell windows. Both Stan and Darlene had to be up high, reaching to grip the bars, just to see out. And what lied past that was a view to the island's beach ahead of them. With... what was that noise? Clashing? Almost like... a sword fight?

First of all, apparently it was dusk already. The sky was clearly getting orange. But apart from that... it seemed to be just _barely_ possible for the two to slip their heads and turn them around to actually get a view at it. Although they could both only see a vague glimpse of the confrontation.

Mostly because it was heavily obscured by some sort of light. There were some flashes of purple and streaks of lightning coming out, but nothing definite and easy to see. The sounds from within _did_ match those of some sort of stereotypical sword-clashing, but when it came to any real details on who was fighting... that was all one great, big blank.

"...Should we even...?" Stan asked his eight-legged(?) friend.

"Maybe we should focus on getting out of here first."

* * *

Not too far away from that... flashy... _scene thing_ was another set of bars outlooking something else. This had more of a view of the ocean out above. And, based on some of the damp splash marks on the ground below the duo, some of the water even got inside through here when the tide was high. Once Darlene peeked her head out, she gave a quick hop in place.

"Ooh! Ooh! I think I see my boat out there!"

"Your boat?"

"Yeah! Look to the right!"

He did. It was... small-ish. Pink. Decorated with a number of symbols, one of which resembling her dream-catcher ear-rings. Oh, maybe I should say that if .GIFfany's bow counts as an article of clothing, so should Darlene's ear rings. And Stan and Ford's 'twin rings' for that matter. Eh... let's not get too technical. These characters are all without any protective tops or bottoms at all, and that is the important factor to this story's constant nudity.

"So... even though ours might be..." Stan paused for that moment, " _trashed,_ we can still leave on yours?"

Darlene frowned, looking away from the bars as she slumped back. "Oh... no. Well, I can't leave."

"Why not? Is your boat out of gas?"

"No. There's this thing - well, I think it's three things, either that or one thing that changes color depending on where it is. I- here, I'll just show you."

She picked up a loose rock from the cavern and tossed it up and down a few times. Then, looking out with one eye closed and a tongue out, she reeled the same hand back. One _very_ careful fling later, and she gave what was bar-none **the** most impressive stone throw Stan had ever seen or even heard about. And yes, Dipper did tell him about Giggle Creek. The rock hopped a seemingly endless amount of times through the ocean. It just kept _going,_ out in to the open seas, almost disappearing in to the horizon...

A while after it did, however, Stan nearly crapped himself ( _nearly_ ) at the beast that arose from the water.

Dark green flesh arose from the ocean in a vague dome-like shape. It had a few vertical stripes that, on closer examination, were actually columns of eyes aligning its body. Not much else could be determined at that distance, although he was _pretty_ sure there would be more to it up close.

Every single one of its visible eyes - and judging from the 'being watched intensity' Stan felt, all of its _invisible_ eyes (from that viewing angle) as well stared their way. It lifted itself up more, hovered _just a little_ towards them, and then halted immediately. Then it crashed straight down in to the water.

Naturally, that caused one heck of a wave. A wave that was heading right towards the pair. It was only after Stan saw that water forming a wall heading towards him that he realized that _maybe_ the tide wasn't to blame for the wet stone marks-

Yep. He and Darlene both got soaked from the resulting splash.

"What was _that?_ " Were the first words that came to Stan's mind, although he could not say them until after that splash knocked him out of his sheer paralysis.

"I have no idea, but whatever they are, they _hate_ the thought of me living this island. Now... I guess we could keep going and see what other 'windows' are out there, then camp out until that other door opens..."

* * *

Not much else was there of note through the cavern 'food storage trap' thingy. It was noted that the cave path split at one point, with one side feeling _significantly_ warmer (and smelling... more like roasted meat?) than the other.

That warm path would have to wait another day. When running away towards a clearly-designated exit was _possible._

Which was why it was extremely helpful that the less-warm path led to what seemed to be the exit! Yep, a large, stone 'door' of sorts with a _very_ handy electronic timer ticking the seconds away was right there, in front of them!

Hrm... fourteen hours left. Wow. Since this started at... _about_ noon, and ignoring the looming sunset... yeah, spending four hours in that cave was a bit unexpected.

Granted, Stan knew what three hours felt like especially after being stunned for that period of time. But still.

"Welp. I guess that's it." Stan said.

Darlene shrugged. "Want to see what's in that other path?"

And to that, Stan replied by flipping his hand down in a dismissive guesture. "That's _more_ than enough adventuring for today. I went on a big expedition, got separated from my team, reunited with an old enemy, I lost control of everything from the neck down, that old enemy became my new friend, we fought some beasts, I found out that my brother's just fine and probably having fun hanging out with Soos and Melody on our newly-repaired boat... I really just want to sleep the rest of the time away. Becides, it smells like that other path was 'Zeskit's' food. And something tells me if he finds out I've been trying to sneak something from him... well, let's just say I'd really want all the help I can get dealing with whatever that 'Zeskit' might be. No offense, but you and me alone..."

That prompted a serious nod from her. "From what I knew 'living' with that guy, Zeskit- if that's his name and that one isn't Katjus - _isn't_ the kind of person you would want to underestimate. Anyway, I'm getting tired too. Want to just... set up a shelter for the night?"

"...Sleeping in a locked-in cave? I don't know about that. I mean, I could set up a mess of web traps to wake us up if another one of those things slipped by, but... wait, I love that idea!"

* * *

Thus, before they knew it, night completely fell, and an elaborate tangling of webs was formed along one of the rectangles with sun light coming through. That one in particular was a little close to the bars that led out to the mysterious ball of light conflict, but it was dulled enough in-sound to allow some sleep.

Which would have had to wait just a _little_ longer, as the pair heard voices speak up in the middle of their conversation.

"This was quite the day!" Stan practically recapped. "But I've already been places with my brother. Dangerous islands are nothing new to me anymore. The biggest shock is that this 'evil giant cave spider' I found on a road trip... well, it turned out you're not evil at all and this was all just a big misunderstanding!"

"I could say the same thing about you." Replied Darlene, with a shrug. "But I was the one that tried to eat you so... that's a little too stuck-up for my tastes."

"You know Darlene, maybe we can even team up. If you use your charm powers for good, maybe we could even start, like, a superhero team with my brother."

"Maybe..." she replied, in an extremely low voice as they both lied back on a massive web.

For a few moments more, they continued lying-

" _I don't think I can fit in._ "

Both of them sat up. Not even enough moments to finish that sentence up there before it was interrupted by... was that Soos? Yes, it was! He was up there, from past that near-by rectangular opening.

" _I think I can._ " Melody's voice. Again, clearly from the surface. " _In fact, I'm still kind of oily from .GIFfany's massage. Let me just see_ how _oily. I mean, all that bathing washed some of it off. If you could-_ "

She yawned. " _Help by pushing me in..._ "

A loud SMACK was heard from above, causing the pair below to flinch.

" _Maybe I could slide in and... oh, this is a bad idea. We'll be separated, and who knows what's in that cave. Or if that light ball will start attacking us. Stan sounds fine... maybe we should just make shelter for the night._ "

Right when the faint sounds of footsteps were heard, Darlene was about to move up and shout out towards the night air-

Then Stan patted her on the side.

"This cave is brutal. It's full of those... well, you controlled me to fight them. I don't want to put Soos and Melody's lives at risk by dragging them in here too. And then there's that 'timer...' don't take this the wrong way, but even with you here, I'll throw myself down the deepest hole if I have to be here another eighteen hours. They have the boat. And they're about to selt up _shelter_ with the boat."

"...What was that about a massage? Do you know who .GIFfany is?"

"She's..."

Stan basically performed the largest blink of his life, keeping his eyes closed as he tried to remember through forty episodes' (and several shorts', and a video game's) worth of summer memories.

"Oh wait. Oh. _Wait._ "

He pressed as much of his head in that hole as he could, trying to call back out to the pair:

"WAIT!"

No reply.

"...They seem fine." Said Darlene. "Who knows? Maybe whatever you hated about .GIFfany just isn't there anymore. Like with you and me."

Stan sighed. "Yeah."

Before either of them knew it, they were just about completely asleep. With the exception of Stan giving one _more_ last "Yeah..." before completely going out.

* * *

Today was an ordinary day like any other at the Mystery Mountain. Tourists lining up to see from its heights and dwell in its underground sights. Sky tram rides and mummies. The same as always.

This time, however, there was another new worker there. One Stanley Pines, standing at his post while promoted senior manager Darlene strolled in to her new work place, confidently humming to herself at the success of her job.

"How's the economic development coming along?" Stan probably could have worded that better, but that honestly sounded perfect in his head.

"Going great!" She lifted her arm and- okay, her fingers were hard to count.

Even during their seperate years, one thing Stan and Ford had in common was their development of being able to tell whether they were dreaming or not during those years. To put it simply, they each did this for _vastly_ different reasons. Of course, Ford also learned to tell a regular dream apart from a Bill-dream, which Stan obviously had no knowledge about at that time. But hey, Bill's not involved any more, this is irrelevant. Why did Stan learn that skill? Honestly, because he could. And... because dreams... kind of freaked him out some times.

Like, again, his inability to properly count how many fingers Darlene had. Six? Twenty? One? It just kept shifting around, and kind of straining his eyes just to look at.

Oh yeah, and this _was_ Stan's dream after all, which was another problem. Why was he dreaming that he was working at the Mystery Mountain?

Nope, no way, screw this 'shipping' nonsense. He was waking up _right now_ and-

* * *

There. Awake. Sunlight hit him, and he practically sprang off of his bed-web thing to check on the timer-

There were still five minutes left. Not enough time to sleep it away, but not so little time that he might as well be out already.

Talk about turning the phrase 'Five more minutes' _completely_ on its head. Like really, jeez.

* * *

Darlene had gone through a less pleasant awakening. That was obvious when said 'awakening' was brought on by a green, mummified hand pulling her from her sleep. Her eyes sprung open at the source, and while he was drained of his organs, she could still tell who that was.

"T-...Todd?" Darlene asked the husk. "I remember you... I drained you!"

More shuffling, more mummies walked to the scene. She looked to the side - Stan completely disappeared. "A-and you! Phil! The first one, not the other one! I was..."

About seven or so arms grabbed her, all of which reaching her neck. Despite the paradoxical action of having that many arms all successfully able to grip her, and said grips being tough ones at that, she could still breathe. And... feel herself breathing just fine through it?

That was not what she was focused on, however. Darlene cared more about the several empty eye-sockets that still felt like they stared down in to her soul. One by one, more mummies walked in, each completely fixated on getting closer to her, and each gripping at her neck. Trying to lift her up.

"Y-you don't understand! I needed to eat and you guys- you guys were-"

"You guys were what?"

Stan said that. A mummified Stanley Pines. Standing right next to her, wrapped just like the others, with dead-black empty sockets peering at her.

* * *

Darlene woke up and, based on Stan's reaction in real life, he really _did_ ask 'You guys were what,' just that her dream registered that as... something else.

Anyway, time to see if those doors were opened. Or heck, _anything_ to take her mind off of... whatever that was.

"Are the doors-"

"Five more minutes." Stan kind of blurted. He just realized how odd that sounded when the person who was already awake said that to someone who just got up, so he shook his head and rethought about the door.

"I mean, there's about three minutes before that door over there opens."

"So... you wanna just... talk or something?"

"Nah. I think I've had enough 'I tell my backstory' for one island visit."

"You know what? Me too. We'll just wait."

* * *

Luckily, _you_ don't have to wait, and neither do I! (Well, aside from the wait between chapters of course... but then again, by the time the full story is out, that shouldn't matter, right?) That's the magic of telling a story, you can just skip to the good parts. And to tell you the truth, although if you read this and especially my other stuff you'd probably already know, I _kind of_ have trouble when it comes to determining when to just skip forward sometimes and I tend to drag things on.

This is not one of those times, I wanted a dream sequence of the main characters of this fic from chapters 2-4. That's over with. Now, Stan and Darlene bolted out of the exit door the second it raised itself.

While fresh air _had_ been slipping through the caves before, this was a burst of considerably _fresher_ air. Both people ran out freely, Stan moreso due to having less experience in caves, as they felt the wind breezing along their naked bodies. Stan with his aformentioned Hank-ian lack of rear muscle, and Darlene's plumper tanned ass.

Then Stan felt an _extremely_ sharp pain as his toe hit something _hard._ And based on the THUNK he heard, it was something metal.

He fell over this one metal object, and based on a sharp horizontal-pain going across his lower legs when he landed, there was another, similar object there too.

Darlene probably would have been able to say what that was first, but she tripped over it too. Leading to Stan to be the one to stand up, look down, and make the discovery.

"Minecart tracks?" He asked as Darlene got up, both of them holding on to their injured feet.

"I-I've never seen them here before! We should follow them! They probably lead somewhere!"

"Yeah, like to a mineshaft that was abandoned for a good reason. Like, it will lead to a cave and we'll see a million dried out corpses or something. I should know, I have one such cave."

"Hm... still, I think it's worth a shot. It's not like we can get trapped in the forest here."

As she peered around, the tracks did not seem to begin anywhere near in either of the two directions. On one side, they stretched out to the depths of the forest - with an oddly freshly-cleared, de-treed hall specifically around them. On the other, they led out to a clearing, and eventually seemed to be going towards the sea.

"So which way should we walk?" Asked Stan. "Split up?"

Darlene looked above the part that led further in to the forest - above the treetops, where the second large mountain was visible. Smoke was coming out from the top, streams of lava were visible on the higher layers... and there appeared to be some sort of building off in the distance. Whatever it was, she had the suspicion that she was looking at it from behind. As there _did_ seem to be _some_ kind of shape there, just not one she could make out. (The back of a head with long hair?) The Arachnimorph soon pointed in the direction opposite from that.

"Let's try there."

* * *

It seems like when it comes to 'Fanservice Island,' you learn something new about it every day. This even applied to Darlene. Like that it actually has a bit of a desert-like section in it, too.

Those tracks led near the beach, as they looked, except there was a surprisingly dry stretch of sand leading up before it. One with - people? A _lot_ of people? Darlene had to place a hand above her eyes to shade out the morning Sun.

"Do you know who those are?" Stan asked.

"No! I've even... walked through this desert before, this is all new! All of these people just came out of nowhere!"

Someone, one of those little distant sillhouettes, must have heard them. Because they were drawing closer.

As that person drew closer, Stan and Darlene's visions adjusted more, and others followed the 'lead' walking up to them, more details about that group could be made out. One: they all looked humanoid enough, but many had strange hair colors, some had strange skin colors, others had features like wings, multiple eyes, or mermaid-like tails. Two: the one marching to them was grinning wildly - bright yellow hair, matching eyes, mildly tan skin. Three: they were all completely naked. Four: their _lower, frontal_ nudity was covered in that pixel effect Stan recognized as that effect over his face whenever he shows up on a news report.

"GrrrrrEETINGS there! Wait, did that sentence make grammatical sense? Well, I am the BRILLIANT .GIFfany Number Five Oh Seven Nine One Five!"

(No, this is not a Donald Trump .GIFfany (either, if you've read chapter 4 before this). I just felt like getting that out of the way.

To spare you the trouble of writing out her number in numberals: 507915.)

"...I am _extremely_ confused." Stan said. He would have fixed on that odd set of tan and yellow (I hope you realize that the yellow was referring to hair and didn't let your mind wander too much) squares between her legs, except that it's basic knowledge to stare at someone's junk. Even if it's censored in real life...? That pink paper from last night kind of told the reason (it was completely reasonable to assume that the two are related), but still. "All I want to know right now is: none of you are trying to kill Soos, Melody, or my brother, are you?"

"NO WAY!" She twirled herself around in place, also causing an impressive small sand-swirl by her feet. Not that Stan was looking at that, as embarassing as that would be to confess. "THIS is none other than the future site of my AMAZING HAUNTED HOUSE ATTRACTION! We are ENTERTAINING Soos and Melody, in a place so cool that they would hopefully never want to leave! And if we do that, we wouldn't EVEN NEEEEEED to use force! Get it?"

"...Okay? Do you know where they are?"

"Ah, I think that 'Four' guy's up in a safe, nice, resting place by that volcano up there." Her smile finally fell as she realized what she just said. "T-trust me. It is pretty safe. Safer than my HAUNTED DEATH COURSE of course, not because it's spooky but because I'm pretty sure I would be violating a _LOT_ of OSHA and JNIOSH rules and stuff. Soos and Melody are a lot closer - just follow the tracks either way and you'll see one of them. Ford's up there, the other two are down here. So, who's your girlfriend?"

Okay, that movie cliche with the whole 'couple in denial' sort of thing and people constantly mistake them for a relationship and they're defensively like 'We're not a couple' but oh wow they actually become a couple later on!

I am just going to be blunt about it and say that I freaking hate that cliche, so I'm going to squish it right when that cliche-obsessed copy brings it up:

"We are in a _really_ gray area right now." Answered Darlene. "I used to trick him in to thinking we were about to start something, but that was really a trick so I could suck out his insides, but then I stalked him here because he was the only man who escaped my little spider legs, I found out he was not who I thought he was, and now we're just trying to start out with a rocky friendship. Maybe we _will_ start something, but right now it's just complicated. It's not one or the other right now."

"Yes, _rocky._ " Stan had added to the claim. "We were also stuck in a cave together for almost twenty hours. Some explosions and cave-ins and stuff happened, and that's why we're naked. What's your excuse for being naked?"

"Wow. That sounds even weirder than my last relationship - I mean, Prime's last relationship, where she and this fighter guy kept throwing projectiles at each other. I should give an _ELABORATE EXPOSITIONARY MONOLOGUE_ on who Prime is: we're clones, if that 'Number Five Oh Seven Nine One Five' was not enough of a clue. Prime is Number One. To answer your question, which is flawlessly led in by my previous story, Prime lost her clothes in a fight after getting her physical form. And while she could have cloned her clothes, she just didn't have any. So instead of taking extra time to generate extra clothes for our physical forms, we all just decided to go frrrrrEEEE!"

Ears all around were filled with the sound of clacking. Coming from the tracks behind Darlene and Stan.

The source of that was visible at their distance. Some... red, white, and pale azure (Stan would call the latter color 'blue,' Darlene had some kind of spider color vision-ish limitation and would probably call it 'blue' too. But I, a guy obsessed with color and color distinction, know the true difference.) blurs... but in the middle of that blur was... Ford?

Darlene honestly could not tell what the heck that was as it zoomed past them, but Stan could spot his twin as he screamed down the track ride. In addition to Ford's screams, there was also some kind of sound of a woman cheering by him - probably that blur. Or, one of them. It seemed like there were two people on either side of Ford.

Also, from the amount of pale tan in the glimpse, Stan could tell that Ford was likely wearing the same thing everyone else here apparently was.

Shortly after Ford passed the two and disappeared further towards the direction of... oh, the crash site? Well anyway, shortly after that, Stan and Darlene whipped their heads back towards the location of the volcanic end to see something... pink chasing-

Wait. That was one of Bill's demon-friends, wasn't it?

"That's not one of us, by the way." Said the tanned copy. "I know she looks humanoid and naked and... is generally a humanoid with a nice body, but she's not us. Stay with us a while, and you'll be able to tell the difference."

The pink being rushed her way until she was right by the Mystery Shack-Mystery Mountain Duo (I'm getting tired of saying 'Stan and Darlene' and I'm pretty sure you are too, so I'm experimenting with names a little). That was not an intentional move on her part - she did not even seem to notive _anyone_ there (not even the other .GIFfanys), and instead spent that time panting, bent over, with her hands on her knees. And her ass hovering right above the Mystery-Duo.

"Oh yeah!" Stan said, getting recollection from that ass (not that he would want to admit it). "You're Pyronica!"

She noticed them - and the 'army' of .GIFfanys behind them. (Quotes used because they were not officially going to go on the offensive yet. Not because it was a small amount. As that yellow-haired copy implied with the six-digit number, there were quite a few .GIFfanys out there - and that particular cluster seemed to have at least hundreds, if not thousands, although many of them were further in the distant sands.) Instead of trying to spit some kind of fire or use a long tongue move or good ol' fashioned fist-fighting, she simply ran further down the track.

"Hey!" Stan _bolted_ after the demon, almost catching up despite their leg-size difference and her already startlingly large lead. "You _get back here!_ I'm not losing my brother _again,_ and I'm _REALLY_ not gonna lose him to one of _YOU!_ "

Darlene had to shift her lower half to its eight-legged form to chase after him. And even then, she couldn't completely catch up.

Not until re-entering a forest, and by then Darlene's spider-lower half shifted back to her less-exhausted humanoid legs. (I promise I'll explain later how this works, but just note that the humanoid form here isn't like, a complete illusion or anything like that despite what her canon transformation may imply.)

Stan was so busy looking ahead that he did not notice that he ran off the path of the tracks until he-

"Why am I always running here-" Who said that? Was that-

 _SMACK!_

Stan was pushed back, Darlene had to take a few steps back before she would have ran in to him. Then, the pair stood looming over whoever it was Stan hit-

Melody?

She was knocked on the ground by his running forth, but for whatever reason, had a sopping sponge fall between her legs. Covering her crotch... and nothing else. That was also the first time Stan figured out that even _she_ was stripped as well, in addition to himself, Darlene, Ford, and possibly (definitely, but you already know that) the 'Prime' .GIFfany. If _Soos_ was the last of them to stay clothed, he'd honestly be shocked.

"Wait! Melody!? Why are you naked? And... running away?"

She barely seemed to register this at first, possibly only seeing Stan and Darlene as looming figures over her for a split second...

WVT UETW HWPX Z VDTPO JR WCUSIPOAAC ZQ HWT RRUFPIMMH QDBTRUSS IS DB CIWII VHDGMVV WH PRFWVTG WZJB IWEK BCJ'GI ERH HJTGRGTS XF WOZT XYLG RDQGOSITPP VSGXSLVZN, HS XHH JHIU WC XI. (Incredibly blatant hint: This is a Vigenère cipher, and it uses a key from an episode. Think which episode would make the most sense...)

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

As you might be able to tell from the wait, I struggled a bit with this chapter. The beginning was not quite fun to write. Once I got to that 'mysterious ball of light' part, however, things sped up a bit. I also got a lot of brainstorming for chapter 4 done while I was writing this (yes, I know, if I am going to do a "read them in any order"-type deal, I should plan a lot more ahead of time... I kind of did, but just the bare basics). So expect the wait between this and chapter 4 to be shorter than the month+ long wait between 2 and 3. It also helps that, of the three chapters, I would have guessed anyway that 3 would be the one I find hardest to write, followed by 4, and then 2 would just go by a lightspeed. (Hence why 2 is longer yet had a shorter wait.)

Of course, if 4 is already out and you're doing what I planned by reading them in any order, none ot this should apply. Well... time to think of something else to say, I guess. Although this would probably fit better in chapter 2's notes (so I might move them there instead):

You are free to do whatever you want to with the .GIFfany clones of this story or any of my other stories so long as you at least mention that these specific clone-concepts you are taking (for example, "Professor Kathody" in the case of that yellow-haired one who acts overly dramatic - _run:gifocalypse_ gives them actual names, not just numbers) come from... one of the fics, I guess whichever one of the .GIFfany copy-fests you found first or felt like mentioning. (Technically the ones of note originate from _run:gifocalypse_ , but if you thought they came from _Journals_ I won't bite. Say they're from _Total Drama World Tour Rewrite_ and I might bark, though.) And I'm even lax on that. If you have a similar idea with .GIFfany taking copies of herself and the main ones are element-themed, I'd take your word if you said they were your idea, so long as the copies aren't really really blatant ripoffs of mine (IE the fire one being a reality show hostess that trolls the "original," the water one trying to perfect water and kicking out any cynics from her life, the wind one being a _King of the Hill_ -obsessed traditionalist, etc).

And speaking of which... while I kind of just got the "there's probably a lot of other video game discs of .GIFfany around so there could be an army of millions" (what I did in _run:gifocalypse_ and _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ ) from general discussion, this story's take on the many .GIFfanys was kind of based on some fan art I saw on Deviantart. It was by CrazyFangirl01 and it is something called "Viral Queen Giffany." Someone else having the idea of .GIFfany cloning herself just immediately caught my eye, because I'm the type of person that eventually (this did not happen as I saw the episode for the first time) thought "You know that sociopath that wanted Soos to be trapped in her world forever and tries to kill people to get what she wants? What if there was like, a centillion of her? Can the world survive that?" This story kind of went in a completely different direction from that anyway, but I still feel like giving some credit there...


	4. The Flames of the Demon

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 4: The Flames of the Demon**

 **Beginning AN:**

I just kind of want to apologize (again, if you read chapter 2 first) in advance. Why? Well, I don't want to give it away, but let's just say... you'll probably figure out why as you read. If not, and your expectations were a bit different, then I'll explain more in the closing notes, where there is no longer anything to give away.

* * *

The Depths.

The cold, dark, bleak Depths.

After what felt like a _really_ long wait (Roughly one to three chapters! Depending on what order you picked!), Ford finally made it to the bottom of that semi-volcanic... temple thing?

Well... when the other option is to face against a teleporting Pyronica with no gear or clothing, it seemed like exploring these ruins of... whatever was the better option to take.

Right. So, the base of these ruins. Anyway, in addition to the canyons, the ruins themselves were a series of red, tall structures that were covered with various marks. Solid 'brick'-like material that, in places, almost blended seemlessly with the rocky walls around it.

Hearing the demon above him giggling, he decided to duck in for shelter.

...And of course it was just as dark and hard to navigate as he expected something presumably-lightless would be.

First of all, the hard stone felt both too warm and too cold at the same time. (Although Ford kind of knew that this was what being naked in a hot, dry location might feel like. Ever since that incident with - that's for another story.) Oh, and thanks to the way the... not- _quite_ torches, but some kind of strange flickering flames were aligned on the wall, it was both too bright and too dark. (So not completely lightless, as that other paragraph may trick you in to assuming.)

Time to march on forth. He's been in worse environments. Again, some of them he even had to face in the buff!

There might have been doors leading in somewhere along the struture, but the closest to a proper 'entrance' Ford used to explore the depths was a large crack that connected the strange temple with the canyon Pyronica dug. He ducked in to that.

* * *

The inside was roughly as mysterious as the outside, the various markings and carved phrases that _seem_ important making it either more or less so depending on how well they were at deciphering various things.

Let's actually check out how well of a job that is.

First of all, everything was written in English, which was a bit of an eye-opener in of itself. Most of it barely made sense, or just seemed to be a kind of spell chant written down for future reference. (Yes, spells in English. Rather than the 'more common' Latin or the like.) Then there was one particular that stood out... a series of deeper, larger engravings on a wall right in the middle of one of the rooms closest to Ford's unofficial 'entrance' to this building.

 _The High Gods watch from above, unable to control the exact nature when the beings of entropy clash. Of the Deflected Sages and the beasts of the apocalypse. As their hands reach out in futility over the battles that follow after the summer of the localized apocalypse, they cannot grasp. They cannot quite touch the single rising eye to prevent it from bringing forth a global cataclysm. They cannot. And so, they only weep at the losses, regardless of the sins they may have comitted leading to their deaths._  
 _They weep at the loss of the consumer of organs that dwells in the mountain caves..._  
 _They weep at the loss of the sorceress who holds electronics at her fingertips..._  
 _They weep at the loss of the four Knights of Mystery..._  
 _They weep at the loss of the pink demoness with one eye..._

...All of that seemed important, but none of it looked good- oh look, banners.

Further down the room itself, lining the wall, appeared to be a septet of hanging banners. Each a different color, and each with a different faded symbol. A red one with a flame on it, an orange one with... some kind of trailing ghosty-thing, a yellow one with some diamond-"shine" shape, a green one with a five-petal flower, a blue one with a kind of wave-like design, a purple one with a vortex, and a black one with... a bright azure bullet that has its tip facing upwards.

Underneath each of them was the following, scribbled lightly in the banner's respective color:

 _She who carries the heat..._  
 _She who balances the dual soul..._  
 _He who is of purity..._  
 _He who stands firmly against the wind..._  
 _He who pushes the boundries of what we know..._  
 _She who can map the shadows..._  
 _She who will bring forth the Age of Void..._

Okay, more nonsense. He's gotta stop reading that really vague, maybe-prophecy (Maybe recap? Hopefully recap...) stuff before he starts seeing and hearing things that will spook him out.

Like that really strange pig squeal-bird squeak he heard. Almost sounded like it was really close behind him. If it were real, anyway.

Wait a minute...

Another instance of hearing the same sound (plus a new mix-in of a... laser sword-sounding _zhoosh_ ) made it all the more likely that it was possibly _real._ Ford whipped his head around.

There, standing tall and 'majestically,' was a blue... _thing._ Describing it would take more than one sentence. Don't believe me? Well, it had extremely long dove-like wings, the face of a particularly angry rabbit, snake-like fangs, giant goat horns, a pig-like body, and surprisingly humanoid legs. (The waist, though, was part of the 'pig-like body.') Okay, that was close to a single sentence. But still! It was a pretty packed one!

Ford's first instinct would have been to immediately write what he could on the creature and include a little sketch of it. His second instinct would have been to whip out a weapon to fry it. As he had neither tool at his disposal, however, he went by his third instinct:

"Are you at all affiliated with the dream demon known as 'Bill Cipher?'"

If you've read chapters 2 and 3 first (You probably read them in numberical order. If it's because of you reading them as they updated, cool. If it's just because that's the order of the numbers, have a little more fun! If it's because you genuinely wanted to get through Soos and Melody's part of the adventure first, then Stan's second, then Ford's third, okay.) and maybe got a little grasp of the 'pattern' with these island inhabitants, you'd probably already guess (correctly) that this creature could not talk back and Ford's instinct about this was kind of a waste.

That would have been where you'd be wrong.

"Noooo I only serve the one the only Destiny Keepers, the lock that prevents those that are anomalous from leaving the confines of this island!" It spoke in a runon sentence.

"So you're part of the islan-"

"SQUACK!"

The beast just seemed to completely _flip out_ after that. Flapping its wings, shooting glowing 'arrows' of bright blue light from its forehead that caused small explosions on every wall they hit, and most importantly charging straight at Ford at every chance.

Hand-to-wing combat was always tricky, even with sapient birds that looked like and were the size of regular birds. This killer giant with energy-arrows was another level - Ford could only make the slightest grapple on it before the bunny...-ish? beast flipped him to the wall, preparing another blast.

And then, right as he was knocked on the wall at the far end, seemingly already looking at an overly complicated series of steps leading up to his death... fire broke out between them, spooking the blue flyer off.

 _Hellfi-_ right, actually it was called _Hellflame._ Almost forgot there.

Ford clenched his teeth. He'd seriously rather take his chances with that thing than-

" _Pyronica._ " He said.

It seemed for a moment that both he and the bird-beast let out the exact same screaching sound at her at the exact same time.

Both of them seemed to have the same idea, too - charge towards Pyronica. However, with the line of hellflame separating the two, it was not a simultaneous tackle. In fact... as the flying thing had to move around the hellflame to reach either of them, Ford managed to successfully tackle first... then the sapphire being kind of seemed to leap at them without fully deciding which one to attack. So it kind of... fell to the floor and grabbed at the ankles of either of them.

"Go away. Whatever you are." Pyronica said, kicking the beast off to the sides.

"It _does_ look facinating..." Ford said under his breath. "I don't know why, but the name... _Arcpigsker_ comes to mind. 'Pig' should be obvious. 'Sker' as in whisker, because of those rabbit features. 'Arc' as in... it just seemed like an appropriate way to cover the bird-goat part."

The demoness shrugged. "Whatever. I still want to kill you- actually, do some other things first. And _those_ things are after letting you have fun in the Depths, of course."

"How did you get out of your home dimension, anyway?"

"Let's just say... a woman with a mask helped me. She knew how to use magic to link up my world with yours. It couldn't last forever, so... I had to burn some of my friends to get out!"

"You killed them?"

"Burned. They got better. We do things like that all the time, relax. I'm not _that_ evil.

"But I am evil enough to kill people who _aren't_ my friends for real! After they help me!"

Ford already knew that was as cooperative as she would have been when it came to answers.

"Now semi-DIE!"

Yep. It was as cooperative. Exactly as cooperative.

So, he was on the run yet again, with one key difference being the shrieking, actually kind of whining beast that was also trying to get at him. (And her. This was a complete three-sided fight. I always found it more interesting if conflicts have multiple sides to them, not just 'this group of good guys versus this group of bad guys.') Hall after hall flew by him... wait, he _felt_ like he was going up. Just some mild elevation leading up to some place. That's a good sign.

"Come back! I haven't explained my tragic backstory to you yet!"

"Tragic backstory?"

"Yeah..." she slowed down a little, for what it was worth. While she sniffed, it was clearly (even to someone who was completely unfamiliar with interdimensional demons - IE not Ford) faked. Heck, that fake-ness was clear even without the giggles she said while she pretend-cried.

"You see..." more sniffing, more slowing. There was no way in heck Ford was going to try to slow with her. He was getting out of there, and nothing would change his mind. "I was only trying to help Bill end the world and make you all in to a throne of agony... _and you wouldn't let meeeee- heee heee heee hee heeeeeeee!_ "

Yeah, wow, that was not a sign of anything changing about her after all. What a shocker.

He kind of sort of knew her for a little while, regardless of dimension. And he _definitely_ knew her top friend. Little about Pyronica seemed to actually surprise him by this poi-

"DUCK!" The demoness cried.

Okay, the fact that she actually warned him of the upcoming attack did.

As was said upcoming attack being that she suddenly sprouted _wings._

"Hey Sixer!" Wings that came from her _hair,_ to be specific, and she began lifting herself to the air. (And yes, her hair is genuine... well, hair. One of the least-extraordinary features about her specific demonic kind, in fact.) "I still need to finish what I started! Come back so that I can do my little secret-y plan and then you can turn in to all that pretty ash! Just like your clothes! And just like your brother will be when I teleport back to him-!"

She stopped in her tracks, letting her large pink ass bounce a little. "Oh. Right. I can teleport. Hey, sorry, I forget that I have that ability now a _lot._ Oh, I think you want to know where it came from. Well... the same person who helped me come back to your world also taught me how to ride around! And it's _really_ fun!"

For her given definition of 'fun,' of course.

Anyway, she zipped over to Ford and grabbed a hold of his shoulders.

"Now, we can-"

The blue winged beast somehow caught up to the both of them, part of its humanoid feet happened to 'kick' her square in her giant, pink ass.

She flinched a bit, but ended up successfully taking the scientist of the strange over anyway, warping him while in her grip. It was within a quick blur, but Ford soon found himself looking at the ocean from several meters above.

"Are you going to drop me in the sea?!" He asked. "What is this?!"

"Relax, sheesh." She said. She also made an arm guesture while saying the 'Sheesh,' using one of the only two things keeping Stanford above a watery grave. A _long_ watery grave - he looked behind him, only to see the island as... well, maybe a few kilometers away. It was still close enough to discern everything, see a few individual trees and the like, and certainly not just a tiny dot on the ocean. It was also a low enough view so that he could just barely make out the tip obsidian structure at the top of its more volcanic mounta-

Huh. He could _swear_ he saw some sparks fly off over there.

"Well... I _might_ drop you in the sea. I might not. Right now, I just want to _plaaaaay_ a little. You see, I know a few secrets about this island. It's easy to get _on,_ but if you're weird like us, it's impossible to get _off_ without teleporting!"

"What do you mean? Is there another barrier, similar to the one around Gravity Falls?"

"Oh, that old thing? No, that woman who helped me come to this world and show me the way to teleport told me that that stuff only applied to demons from another dimension! 'Regular' weird things can leave Gravity Falls just fine! I mean, you did, with your six fingers. You resisted that 'weird magnet pull' thingy. This is a little more... _bloody._ "

She spat more Hellflame off to the distance, _immediately_ gaining protest from Ford.

"I may not be an environmentalist, but I _know_ that inextinguishable flames in the ocean would be _devastating!_ You would evaporate water for hours before it dies out on its own! That would create a vortext when it sinks to the bottom that-"

Well. It was seemingly extinguished mid-air by a roar. (Wind normally cannot extinguish Hellflame, another bit of trivia.) Coming from deep below the ocean depths.

Then, _it_ showed up.

Still **thankfully** a great distance away (May whoever see this up close be accompanied by some sort of gigantic guardian for company, especially given the location out in the sea. Actually, even someone seeing this from far away should be grouped with a kind of supernatural-powered beast on their side. This... medium distance, at least medium when it comes to the size, was... someone like Pyronica would be good enough company power-wise, if she had been good) lied a beast of a similar sapphire coloring as that strange flying animal hybrid from the 'Depths.'

With his above-angle, he could make out the definite rounded shape of it. Well, for starters, 'round' meant that it was like a hemisphere. It shone brightly admist the day-time sea: a massive hemisphere of blue flesh, with several eyes arranged in vertical stripes leading up. Each of its eyes seemed like they had... _something_ wriggling around them, but from the distance, Ford could not tell what they were.

It came back down with a heavy _splash,_ sending a huge circular wave that just barely died out by the time it reached the island and overall gave a display that nearly made Ford pass out.

" _WHAT WAS THAT THING?!_ " He asked.

"Oh, you rode right over it in your boat! You probably didn't see it because of the storm, but yeah, there's three of them. One green, one red, and one - well, you just saw that one. One blue! Most people who try to go around here see it from the surface - you can do that when it's not stormy and it's still daytime - and back off."

True to Pyronica's word, Ford _did_ see a massive, circular shadow under the water. It began moving around, as though it was following an invisible orbit around the entire island. It seemed to refuse to outright bring itself anywhere closer to him.

"They don't get too close to the island for some reason... they hate the thought of any thing 'weird' leaving. Again, just like us!"

"Why did you show this to me?" He struggled against her grasp.

"Oh... why not? I thought I might as well share some things about this island that you don't know before _ending you and everyone you know!_ "

He sighed. "How are you going to do it?"

"...Okay, I was bluffing, and I'm gonna get to the point I wanted to. That secret point thingy. Sheesh. There's still just a _few_ more things I need before I make the Pines family history. You see, I was kind of wanting my friends to get here... you know that big portal you made?"

Ford actually felt a bit of relief upon the confession. He had more time than he thought. Sort of.

"Make another." Pyronica bluntly, stoicly said what Ford pretty much knew she was going to say.

He sighed-

Oh, _mid-sigh_ she happened to have taken him back to the island proper. At least he was no longer in that strange temple area dealing with a bird-pig-rabbit thing. Instead, he seemed to be by the non-volcanic island.

Hey, closer to Stan at least.

"So... do you have, like, any more of those alien parts or something?" Pyronica asked him.

"No, and we all should know that! Crash Site Omega only had enough parts for one portal! I discussed this with Bill, he should have told you that!"

"...He actually didn't."

"What _did_ he tell you?"

Her focused shifted as she looked around the cliff side.

"Hey... do you hear that?"

"I'm not falling for a basic third-grader's trick."

But he _did_ hear something. Clashing, in a way. It was _almost_ enough to make him turned around...

Nah. He ran right past Pyronica, turning only to keep his gaze at her. But after seeing her body _refusing to move an inch_ at whatever he was looking at, even after he moved long past her, that he just had to bite.

Biting did not disappoint. Ford saw... some glowing ball of light. Occasional flashes of purple directly matching those of a certain arm that started the whole thing and peeks at some kind of _mask_ appeared, but other than that, it was pretty difficult to tell exactly what was going on over there. The really blinding light didn't help.

Despite his thought that Pyronica was making something up, Ford found that _he_ escaped that before _Pyronica_ did. Soon, he could just run around the mountain side, get towards that cave, retrace his steps-

Pyronica zipped ahead of him, lying on one elbow which she used to rest her head. You see, if this were visual, I'd do a thing where they were positioned so that the back of his head would block the view between her legs. Actually, that's what happened back in the first chapter too. Just... use your imagination. If visual this story would be trying to pull as many scenery censor tricks as possible when it comes to crotches. Boobs and obviously butts are by no means part of this rule.

But anyway, she pretty much answered his last question as though that ball of light did not exist:

"Well, Bill did tell me that you built a portal that could help us start our party! And that you went to a place with a lot of strange symbols! So I found one in Gravity Falls, and another right here."

"...Bill really did not tell you that much?"

"Honestly, no." She began to blush. "...We're not really that smart. Compared to him.

"But we don't need brains! That's what you're for! We have... or, I have... fire! And eating people! So, let me just take you back there-"

Ford got a chuckle out of her being tackled by that blue thing (obviously, the smaller animal-hybrid, not the enormous thing out in the ocean). Yes, that was what happened next.

"Ow! Hey!" She screamed, kicking at the beastly being. "What are you doing back here?! Oh right, you only talk when you want to!"

Curious, Ford tried to take a step - as he'd imagine, Pyronica tried teleporting yet again. This time, 'tried' was the key word. The beast was zipped over with her as well, trying to fire lasers right on to her... shoulders. Pyronica's arm-extensions then _exploded_ in to a pair of giant, Hellflame jets, which finally got the creature to back off.

" _That thing_ at least doesn't like fire." She felt the need to explain as she got up and shifted her arm-extensions back to normal, her womanhood now being blocked by a 'generously' (depending on your opinion of seeing as much rose-pink-skinned, one-eyed demon giant waist as possible) leafless, thin tree branch. "Or it didn't when I first came here. I think they're getting smarter. There's more creatures here, but I don't think fire is their weakness. I can't really kill any of them. Now, where were we? Oh, right. I'm gonna put you _back_ in the Depths again, so that you can build another portal! I only sent you here because that thing in the ocean scared me, and I couldn't focus on where to teleport to..."

"That's just a bunch of blocks with gibberish written on them." Explained Stanford. "Even if I _had_ my electronic readers, they would tell me what I could already guess. That's just a temple made by some nut cult centuries ago. Perhaps even millennia ago - the taste of the dust down there was a little... on the line. Crash Site Omega holds the only known source of _real_ potential dimensional-altering energy."

"Urgh! Why did I even bother?"

"At this rate, it would take an army of supernatural geniuses - or maybe just really good university students, if the 'supernatural' means that they _are_ supernatural and not just that they study it - for Earth technology to catch up to the Pan-Dimensional Beings of Trilazzx Beta by this era. Bill himself told me that other sites on Earth were that far behind. If he wasn't lying."

Pyronica folded her arms. "Okay, I guess I have to rethink my plan... let me just go back to the depths and double-check that none of that stuff was, like, magic or anything."

She turned around, and Ford got a _tiny_ bit of amusement out of her ass breaking the branch that was previously obscuring her vulva when she swung around. She stopped in her tracks and turned her head a bit.

"Oh, wait a minute..."

She swung her whole body back and gave Ford a glare (an ordinary hummingbird happened to hover in sync with her nether bits to make up for the lack of a broken brach).

"Yeah! I'm gonna do that! But first, I want _you_ to look again at them. You're good at history, right?"

Before he could even consider if lying was a reasonable option, she continued:

"Of course you are! You're smart! You're like, the smartest person on the planet! So smart guy, I'm gonna start piling up bricks and stuff from there! You look at them and tell me if I can build a portal right here! Otherwise, I won't teleport you and your friends off the island! Is that a deal?"

"I made it my code _and_ part of what I find common sense to reject any deals from your kind! I mean, you might not be Bill, but..."

"It's a normal deal, not a 'blue flame deal.' Those thingies are-"

She finally noticed her own censor. Oh yeah, I guess I should talk about Ford's. Um... he was covered by some small flower on a really long stem sticking up from the grass.

"Hey bird! What are you doing there?" She asked. "Go away!"

She brought an arm up to _swat_ at it as hard as she could. What she did not see, however, was that part of bringing the arm up brought it close to the path of a beehive... and when she brought it back down, it crashed against that beehive. She managed to scare off the bird... with a patch of honey that flew from the hive and landed right between her legs. The hive itself was also knocked towards the ground, a mass of bees rising to 'face' her groin-level just as she finished dusting off the sticky yellow fluid.

"Yeah..." she said, looking at the angry, opaque cloud. See, this is why naked characters in cartoons don't try that hard to get rid of what's covering them. Otherwise the writer might get made and 'send' bees in their place. Or something worse. Like T-rexes.

"Right. I'll be back. And remember, you can run, but you can't hide! Unless you hide really good..."

She zipped away before the bees could sting her.

All of the bees stopped mid-air and, for the standard of bees, looked like they had no idea just what the heck happened. They kind of reacted the same way a human would if they saw a target teleporting away from them with no context whatsoever.

Either way, Ford decided that he should get out of-

"SQUACK!"

 _Oh, you have got to be kidding!_

The flying cobalt beast dove to him, headbutting the researcher and sending him to a flying course through the thick forest. It finally ended with him being knocked in some sort of crevice along the volcanic mountain. Just as it seemed like this blue monster was about to give him a finishing laser blast, another 'wall of fire' errupted and scared it off.

It was also then that Ford realized something about the place he was knocked in to. Although maybe the sudden lack of energy from getting knocked so _hard_ in to solid stone might have also led to convincing him not to move too much. Anyway, the little cracks he was knocked in to seemed like the _perfect_ hiding place against Pyronica. And it's not like if she _did_ spot him, she'd be able to easily get him out. Not even her teleportation powers seemed to allow her to reach places smaller than her. He could just... hide out there...

And also fell asleep. He underestimated how much energy that took out of him.

Pyronica warped back with a pile of the red 'Depths' bricks in her hands, just-so-happening to be covering her as the bees had since scattered.

"Hello? Ford?" She asked. Upon dropping them, the clouds of dust they left kept her cover. "Shoot! I should have known..."

Just as the dust clouds were about to fade, she began scratching herself in a _very_ unladylike manner, yet in a manner that out of context might have possibly kept a movie PG-13 and not R.

"Those bee stings _itch!_ " She complained. "Argh! Is there anything I could- oh, hey. I didn't know catci grow here..."

With one hand still scratching, she used her free hand to pluck out a long, straight, rounded cactus from the ground, deciding to scratch that against herself instead.

* * *

...Ford was not expecting to wake up in what felt like an air-conditioned environment, with sheets over him and on a soft bed. He distinctly remembered kind of losing conciousness in a hot, dry, area with no covering at all.

It was a bit understandable that he would not exactly welcome the thought of opening his eyes. Still, to not do so would be kind of stupi-

Why hello there gigantic cerulean eye peering down at him.

"Oh, you're awa-"

Almost by instinct, Ford punched at whatever it was above him without getting much of a look. He immediately regretted that when his reflex-victim was knocked back, falling over and landing on the floor on her ass.

Yes, floor. He was in some kind of decently-polished building, with wooden walls having a number of windows revealing him to be... located somewhere _high?_ He could only really make out oranged sky above him. He wasn't even sure if that was the volcanic stuff or he sun setting. (It was actually the former, just to get that out of the way, the latter would join a bit later.)

More importantly was the person he hit. A pretty large woman, and just slight examination revealed that she had three eyes, not one (he punched the middle one). Her skin was a bright azure, her butt-length hair matched her eyes, her body was bare aside from some golden piercings- and those pierces included nipple rings. Notably, her legs trailed off to ghost-like wisps, and her crotch looked like it was subjected to Ford's anti-Bill image scrambling/low-rezing tool.

"Apologies for my assault." Ford said. "Today I had a lot of bad experiences with blue beasts and a cyclops, and from where I was you almost kind of looked like a giant, blue cyclops."

She continued rubbing her eye, then blinked (trinked?) a few times until it seemed to have completely recovered. "That is fine."

"...Who or what are you?" He asked.

"I am a .GIFfany!" She said with a surprising amount of perk for someone that was just punched in the face. "We found a pink humanoid trying to claw through rock to get to you! So some of us saved you! Well, first they asked if that pink person was trying to save you. She confessed that she wanted you to be her slave? Many of us used lightning to knock her out! Now, I am a messenger that greets people! So... your name is 'Four,' right? Like the number? We also go by numbers."

"Call me Ford. It's short for Stanford."

"Okay Four, let me show you around! This is part of what we call the Basement! It is like a 'downtown' section of it, planned to be the most advanced of all and with much more than our starting Basement by the beach!"

"...For **d**." He corrected.

She floated over to the door and cracked it open. "130734! He's awake! You said you wanted to talk to him too?!"

It suddenly clicked why that name '.GIFfany was so familiar to him.

That sketch. That 'review' entry in Journal 3.

Although Soos never mentioned that she had three eyes. Or was blue. And he could swear he would have remembered if she was naked and had encrypted imagery between her legs.

Then two more humanoids walked in. One with a similar cyan-ish skin as Ford's greeter, red hair and eyes, and a relatively more 'average' size. (Though she was still pretty tall.) Unlike the pixelated three-eyed wisp-leg one, her crotch was covered by a hand-held stop sign in possession of the other one that walked in. That other one had medium tan skin, gray hair that she _seemed_ to be trying to tie to a ponytail with _metal,_ and oddest of all, wore huge round glasses. That latter one was 'scrambled' as with the bigger, azure copy with wispy 'feet.'

"Hi there!" The redhead introduced herself. "We - as in, me and your greeter over there," she guestured to the genie-like one, who waved back, "and not this one," she jerked her thumb to her silver-haired 'friend' (quotes because of the look she was flashing the redhead the entire time) "are going to show you around a little! Why? Why not!"

" _I_ am here because this copy insists on breaking our decency standards and not covering her genital region up as per Basement Law 2." Said the gray-haired one. "That is why I will not be a part of your tour, and you can ignore me."

"It is called being a rebel!" Giggled the one with red hair.

"Violating our second most important rule is just annoying. Not a sign of being a 'rebel.' If you do not like having me around, just pixelate yourself when out in public. And before the establishment of, or when the event comes if you are still going without, an article of pseudo or in an unlikely case real piece of clothing, from Project Scenic View are done."

Speaking of which, Ford himself was still naked.

"Mmmm... no! I like the light around me to _not_ be bended and distorted!"

"You fail to think of the pixels as the bare-minimum clothing. Think of... say, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game with a customizing feature, and the pixels correspond to the underwear that serves as the bare minimum fighters are given at the start of the customization menu. You are behaving much as a perverse mod that is not even satisfied with that."

"You know we all hate underwear. Especially bras. Fuck those!"

"Your opinion is clearly in the minority in regards to lower garments, then. But yes, I share your sentiment and... _resentment_ on bras."

"...Right." Said Ford. "Can anybody direct me to clothes, if there are any around?"

"Oh, right." Said the largest, three-eyed copy. "We thought that maybe you came here naked as a sort of nudist movement-"

"Keep in mind that we are **not** a 'nudist movement!'" Cheered the red-haired copy. "We are going around naked with the full intent to arouse! _And_ we started off not naked by choice! There is a difference between nudity in the name of freedom and body positivity, and nudity because you think it is hot!"

The gray-haired copy gave a nod in what looked like _very_ heavy defeat, as though agreeing with the red-eyed one caused her physical pain.

"-...And it is really hard to make clothing."

"But not nip- I mean, piercings in general that could be any place on the body?" Ford could tell by the way all three looked at him that they already knew what would have slipped from his mouth.

"We can make matter _in general_ out of nothing, but only in the form of more of us or this metal." Explained said pierced woman. "It is the kind of metal we use for most things."

"Well, some glass too." Said the bespectacled one. "I crafted these glass for the glasses myself. It was not easy. Now, I believe you are about to get a tour..."

* * *

It was pretty much exactly as weird as you would expect. Ford figured out that the sparks he saw from earlier were them building... well, that would take its own paragraph to describe:

Something of a 'town' was a good place to start with that description. It had a number of skeletal building structures, all of which were of multiple, _multiple_ stories as more naked, technicolored .GIFfanys worked on them all. Some were made of wood for such a fire-hit location, but quite a few were made of... stone, and even more out of metal. However, one key difference from the 'town' template was the fact that Ford's starting point was absurdly close to the very tip of the volcano. Several carved stair cases helped him complete what little remained of a hike up to the crater, and upon reaching it, he noticed an exceptionally large .GIFfany-shaped (This one was also nude, and had a giant tree placed specifically to strategically cover her. No, Ford had no idea how the volcano's heat didn't set the whole thing on fire. Or him, for that matter.) statue resting _right_ in the middle of the hole leading straight to the planet's boiling blood. Actually, thinking of lava/magma like that makes volcanos kind of gross. Like giant open wounds surrounded by raised flesh that - let's not try to gross you out. You're here for the naked women, right? Probably one of the few times you're glad that a cover turned out to be a complete and utter lie, assuming one did not count the beginning when everyone _had_ clothes as 'Full Clothed Women.'

A somewhat smaller difference between this and a regular town were the giant, wordlss signs that displayed images of something relevant to them. Restaurants just had giant pictures of the general idea of what type of food they served above their actual titles, and so on.

"Over there, we have a number of shops and restaurants!" The blue giant one pointed out, specifically drawing her attention to an orange-skinned (No, that is not a Donald Trump .GIFfany. Either, if you read chapter 3 before this.) copy with violet-colored hair, furiously hacking away at a fish with the use of a giant meat cleaver.

"Ah, there's 523349. She is... a little _off._ " Continued the floating genie .GIFfany. "If she starts talking about dragons, just ignore her. Unless it is dragon-based copies."

Ford glimpsed up - he couldn't even tell exactly how tall these structures went, or where they ended.

"Yeah, we can't build too high." Explained the red-haired one. "You know, lurking around this island are three-"

"The pink monster you saw earlier already told me."

"-Oh! Well, did you know that they can fly up in a dome-shape and will try to eat us if we go too _high_ above the island? Their 'border' around is spherical, not circular. We do not know if we can survive in some way, but we would rather not try testing that."

Also, upon closer examination, Ford realized that the eyes and mouth of the statue were glowing. And, more obviously, several more copies were climbing out of the open hands of the statue.

No, he was not sure how he missed that at first either.

"So Ford." Said the non-pixelated one.

"It's Ford- wait, you got that one right."

"You like science, right?"

"The weirder and more complicated the better! But... why did you ask?"

"If you pay attention to our original game and look at the chalkboard, you would have seen the Schrödinger Hamiltonian."

"Oh, that old thing?"

"How do I word this without getting too... _exitensial..._ Ford, 'our creator' and to a lesser extent 'our intended players' like smart women. And we were _kind of_ trying to learn that stuff to become three-dimensional _as a side goal_ , but found out that thanks to the Lightning Cultist, we did not need to! That equation was the first clue that we study advanced physics."

"I wouldn't call it _advanced,_ but-"

"Since we multiplied, several of us had branched on to different forms of study." She began counting off her fingers. "Chemistry, botany, ... _dramatic arts..._ but I stuck with physics. And 'weirdology' in general. Anyway, somewhere below the ground around this volcano we found a strange red... temple-thing. We were wondering if-"

"Aha! You are secretly some sort of Pyronica-placed illusion trap! I knew it! You were about to say that you wanted me to build an inter-dimensional portal with the supplies inside! Forget it, Pyronica!"

He was just about to take off when he heard the same copy continue.

"...A boat. We are just asking for a boat. An advanced boat. That comes with a cannon. So we can blow up the 'Boundary Guardians' and leave."

That _did_ sound pretty useful.

"Some kind of technology-magic hybrid thing. I mean, it looks like there is enough material there, and... why would we want to build a portal to more dimensions, anyway? We are nowhere _near_ that expansion phrase yet, and even that assumes that the universe is finite. Becides, if any one of us touches any parallel .GIFfany, we and that entire universe that we touched in would be wiped out of existence. Strangely, we can touch each other all the time and cause no problem at all. Go figure. Well, I know the answer why, but that will be getting too existencial."

She poked her censoring gray-haired copy in the nose.

"What do you mean by 'yet' and that you're assuming 'the universe is finite?'"

"This is supposed to be our area of fun for Soos and Melody!"

"Over a volcano?"

"...Well, no, we picked this spot because the lava gives off a lot of heat, and we can use heat to- the details are not important! What is is that we want them to be with us forever, and by forever, we _really mean_ for all eternity! And what would an eternity be if the place was not constantly growing and expanding with free downloadable content?"

"...So you are _not_ trying to take over the world. And you are really _not_ allied with that pink monster I am assuming you saw earlier. Sorry, I still can't take your word on that."

"If you can not trust us now, I do not know what to say that will make you completely trust us in the future. We can leave you alone to do what you want to, if you want. We do not really care about you or see you as a player right now; our current focus is on Soos and Melody. Well, we should talk to them about if you want to be included or not."

"'Included?'"

He felt something _very_ lightly tapping his leg. A quick head-turn revealed a... spider? It seemed oddly formal, being one of five holding up some kind of rolled up paper. After they noticed he had their attention, the group carrying that paper held it up to him.

"Ooh. I think somebody is trying to send you a message!" Said the large, blue-ish-skinned (I do _not_ completely equate azure and blue) copy. "We can leave you be and read that."

"They smell like they are from the c-caves." The violet-haired fish-cutter _finally_ piped in to the conversation, making everyone - copy, Ford, and spider alike - flinch. "Um Four, most of us do not i-interrupt if someone sends a message l-lik-like that, but .GIFfany Prime might if she goes there... and she _is_ about to walk on a path that goes t-t-t-to the in between the caves and this mountain."

"...She has a patrol route?"

The violet-haired one looked like she was about to speak, but only let out a dry croak of confusion as she noticed the red-haired one raise an arm up.

" _Easy._ I can explain this. Right, .GIFfany Prime messaged us that she just finished bathing in a spring with Melody, Soos kind of lost track of things and he is out daydreaming in the ocean - starting to drift dangerously close to the Boundary Guardians, but they'll get someone to bring him back - while Prime... kind of snuck off while Melody went back to their main site, looking around to check on progress on the side sites."

Ford unrolled the paper. It showed what looked like a diagram of various cuts and the like of the human body itself, except with a gigantic 'X' struck through and text reading _IGNORE THIS. TRUST ME._ in giant letters... in Stanley's handwriting.

He shuddered, flipping it around.

No matter how hard he read it, it looked like the message only said the following:

 _-ra ped in cave, bu oka. Penis running out. See you when 15!_

"...Does anybody have anything to write with?" He tried to keep his composure as he asked.

Oh, apparently they can make pens but not clothes, as Ford found out when the giant three-eyed 'messenger' handed him a _pretty_ well-crafted pen.

Well, he pushed that aside to write the one thing he could think of to that: _What?_

He slid the paper back to the little backs of the spider troop, and they made their way back down the mountain.

"How did they even find me up here?"

"...We do not know the answer to that." The red-haired one said. "Not even our spider fan does. When we were first made, some of us found signs of two human-size life forms in that other mountain over there. One of them is your brother. We... _think._ The other one is... some kind of... potion expert?"

The message returned _eventually,_ with less familiar hand-writing on it:

 _Hi there! I'm Darlene, and I think I accidentally trapped your brother in here with me! I was trying to eat him instead. I'm not anymore, if that helps! We're getting along great! Now, we're in the caves, if you could just_

The message cut off right there.

Shrugging, Ford attempted to just slide the pen he was using in, hoping that 'Darlene' would be able to finish whatever it was she was trying to write.

Once it took longer than usual to get the paper back, and said paper failed to return, the giant messenger spoke again. "We have a minecart system, if you want to get around."

"Oh yes!" Said the redhead. "Soos loves minecart levels, so we decided to use minecarts to link out major points until we get a better, firm system established! So, we _could_ get you to safer ground and wait by Soos and Melody at the 'original' Basement. Or you could stay here and examine more of everything."

He looked out to the beach, but then something caught his eye - a tiny, quick flash of pink that got him to duck off to the side and hide himself behind a rock. He looked around, seeing the demoness flying through the air of the island. She spoke, and _boy_ did she sound like she was right next to him with that voice.

"HEY FORD! You HAVE to be around there somewhere... don't you DARE turn out to be hiding by that city up there! Everytime I try to go there, I get zapped! It's not faaaaaaiiir! :("

Yes, she somehow incorporated an emoticon to her speech in a way. ...Oddly, I would have expected maybe one of the .GIFfanys to be the first to do that. But it was Pyronica, even regardless of the chapter. (To the three or so people who read these out of numerical order, no, sorry for spoiling that little detail of chapter 2. .GIFfany does not use emoticons in her speech there.) Huh.

The journal-writer still shuddered.

"I need to prepare for a moment. To fight against... _her._ "

"Oh, we can help you with that!" Cheered the fire-headed .GIFfany copy. "We'll make weapons and even act like a kind of army!"

She turned off to the side, looking at what was practically the other side of the city.

"HEY!" She shouted. "631019!"

A copy with the _exact_ same skin color but with white hair (that, strangely, seemed to have some faint blue "light parts." For reference, these "parts" on the original .GIFfany were pale yellow-tinted - the yellow-ish shine of her hair) walked to them.

And said nothing. She just _stared_ at them for a while.

"...Right." The white-haired one's summoner said. "Um, hey, messenger, I think the 'tour' part is over. You can dismiss yourself unless Stan comes along or... something. My soul buddy and I will take it from here."

The giant one nodded, spun herself around, and appeared to generate a small tornado around herself - she used this as a sort of means to propell herself up and _quickly_ got away from Ford's sight.

"So!" Clapped the one with the burning red hair. "It's just us, the spiritual-buddies! Oh yeah, and my little self-censor over here."

" _Just generate the pixels and I wouldn't have to be there._ " Said aformentioned stop sign-holder. " _Four is_ _ **company.**_ _He is only a guest. We cannot fully expose ourselves around him._ "

"It's Ford."

The two (remaining) azure-skinned copies both began leading the way to a particular building. One with an icon of a sword and shield over it. Curiously, there was a building right next to it with what _looked_ like an icon of a metal breastplate, but Ford did not have to be experienced with skimpy fantasy armor to tell that that symbol would probably be more misleading...

* * *

The inside of the place he was led to, as the icon implied, sold swords and shields. Why shields were not being sold with what was presumably the neighboring 'armor' store was anyone's guess. Inside lied a shopkeeper, a bored-looking one with blue hair and deeply tan skin. She sat behind the desk with her head on one hand, using the other to drum up no distinct pattern.

"Oh! 519367!" Announed the one with red hair. "Didn't expect to see you here! Isn't 9 supposed to be there or something?"

"She said that Prime invited her to 'write a special message' to a paper that was being passed around the island, and possibly to look for a pen that fell out of it." Replied the shopkeeper. "I was called in to fill for her at the last second. And I hate this place. It radiates with pessimism."

"So are you a kind of all-female race?" Ford asked.

"Mmmmm... technically." Replied the substitute store-owner. "We started as women. But that can be changed."

To demonstrate, Ford's 'main guide' (I'm getting a little sick of mostly referring to her by hair color, I have to shift things up a bit without constantly going by number) tapped a seemingly random space ahead of her. Just like that, a long list of blue boxes outlined by white dropped down, each of which listing a feature -

Oh _wow_ was that system detailed. Especially considering the _extremely_ squished-looking scroll bar to the far right. Sex being there (and the top customizable option) answered his question, and as his 'friendly' guide slowly scrolled down that list, others still were revealed: weight, height, build, bust size, overall size, hips, hair, face, limb count, limb type, wing details, tentacle details, scale details, fur details, tail details, physical composure, state of matter/solidity, temperature, hair color, eye color, skin color, blood color, nail color, miscellaneous color details, hair pattern, eye pattern, skin pattern, blood pattern, nail pattern, miscellaneous pattern details, body moisture level, length, dimension, 'particle' effects, radio reception, radiation type, tongue(s), pixelation/censorship settings, muscle, bone, fat, misc. internal details, breast number, additional possible superpower, claws, skin-webbing settings, and primary charge type were all the ones Ford could actually _read._ The copy closed the menu well before it was even a tenth of the way finished and spoke again.

"And these are not counting the later DLC! Expanding each option... maybe even adding more if we can think of any."

"So..."

"If you are asking if you can change any of these, no! You are a guest! You can look, but not touch! Only us copies, Soos, and Melody can right now!

"Anyway, if you are wondering, when we are made we have an algorithm that sorts us in to a new combination of traits that were never picked by 'default' in a copy before. This becomes our 'default.' Our true default is what Prime looks like." Oh boy, even _more_ unnecessary complicated terminology when describing what should just be left at a living video game monster. At this rate, .GIFfany's gonna be 'big' enough to be her own AU or whatever. "Now, your question... we are all women because both of the people with control over us like women, so think of this appealing to two people at once! Some times Melody will flip some of us to men, depending on what she prefers, but she always flips us back for some other reason. For some reason, the three times we actually spoke, she flipped me to male for all of them."

"I _think_ I understand."

"So! What kind of weapons do you want? We mostly have swords, hammers, spears, battle axes, crossbows, and spears. Soos likes this game called _Dwarves and Fortresses_. Also, we would have included knives right away, but .GIFfany 9 thinks they are cliche... none of us _like_ 9, but she makes sense some times, so we listen to her."

She clapped. "But right! We also have some larger tools, like cannons!"

Something caught Ford's eye, in the distance. It looked... kind of like a giant, metal, humanoid with a face on its chest, both faces giving a stoic look at him. It appeared completely deactivated, and its gray shell helped it blend in to the rest of the background, but it still looked very out of place compared to the rest of the weapons around here. It didn't even follow the '.GIFfany Template' at all.

"What is that?" He asked.

"Oh, nothing." Replied the blue-haired copy. "We tried to make a 'mecha,' but it did not work. Now, before we begin, are you an idealist or a cynic?"

"519367!" The redder one shouted back at her.

"Oh, right. This isn't my store." She sighed.

* * *

And so, time just _slipped_ on by as Ford found himself testing these tools on a target range. Not that he was even remotely inexperienced at combat, he just had no idea if _these_ weapons had any 'quirks' to them. Turns out they did; every single thing he picked up, even the crossbows (he made a note to test out if the cannons did that later, with enough strength), fired a bright purple laser when he swung them with enough of an arc.

That honestly startled the heck out of him because he was not even remotely told about that. He was just checking how heavy the sword was, and then _PCHEW!_ A light fired off from it and caused its struck target to _explode._

Other than that, that stuff was boring even by training montage standards. Before he knew it, night fell upon him, and he went back to the same bed the copies had lifted him out to, prepared for a rematch against the demon. The presumably 'armor store' was closed before he had a chance to even see if it lived up to his promise.

He drifted off, regrettably, but one thing he tried to change since Bill's downfall was to not be as much of an insominiac.

Stan seemed safe enough in the cave. These strange virtual beings appeared to be good company for Soos and Melody. It's not like he could do anything while a demon was circling his general area, anyway, like a giant, pink watch dog.

* * *

Ford had more than enough mind-training to know if he was in a dream or not, and could thus perfectly predict that he was experiencing a dream.

Rather than stalk fields or classroom memories, however, this dream started out with him on a warped version of Fanservice Island. For one thing, there appeared to be an inconsistent number of other islands on the horizon, which gave him the vibe that the whole world was like this - one strange island with a volcano after another. The temperature 'there' also felt pretty cozy, quotes because he knew that was just him sensing the combination of the sheets and the air conditioner from the real world.

Giant, blue flying goats with pig faces circled the sky above as Ford ducked himself in to the trees and tried to get himself to wake up. As much as Stan, Soos, and Melody _seemed_ safe enough, this was _really_ not the time for sleeping - the whole thing just snuck up on him. He only realized this _after_ he got to bed.

Purple and hot pink all whisped past him as he went through. _These things are completely unseeable_ he 'thought' (quotes because a dream, mindscape aside, is already a form of thought - in some ways it's _kind of_ like speaking if there's nobody dreaming with you). _No use in trying to look for them when there's nothing there._

While the purple _did_ reveal itself to him as... an arm, that soon tauntingly waved around that super special gun he had told his crew should _not_ fall in the wrong hands, of course the hot pink happened to turn in to Pyronica. Who knocked the arm out of the way and laughed at him.

He knew this was a fake. She lacked the ability to enter dreams without Bill's aid - after all, she is not a dream demon. Her race is actually called a... Feminine Flame Beta. He still had no idea what the 'Beta' meant. He did not have the chance to reach her home dimension.

Ford waved a hand and dismissed the fake Pyronica in front of him.

 _Now then._ He thought. _On to business._

He could still plan out his moves while dreaming... figure out what to fuse together... let's see here...

Whatever material those weapons were made out of (he had _no idea_ beyond 'metal...?'), they had some remarkable density. Light. Edged weapons felt like air yet ripped like a knife made of lava. The blunt weapons must have been made out of something else - they could hit a target. **Hard.** Practically smash even tough alloys in to little pieces. They're good at flattening things, too.

Also, the .GIFfanys made just the most _amazing_ back-scratchers.

But alas, his calculations just kept getting interrupted by something. Every time he would focus his dream to scribble equations in the dirt, something would enter his head and they would either be faded away completely or rewritten to jibberish. Something...

Bright pink... and round...

 _That damn butt._

He had no feelings for Pyronica whatsoever. No _romantic_ feelings. And he wasn't even interested in her sexually - that butt had some other effect on him, for some reason. It was more along the lines of something... _enraging._

"Is he thinking about butts?" He heard Pyronica's voice 'behind to his side'-him, and knew that this was a voice from reality. _That_ was what got him to wake up...

* * *

...Spin around, and look to the side-

Oh. It was that red haired copy that said that (yes, she still had the stop sign-holding gray-haired friend). His mind just filtered it to Pyronica's voice.

"Sorry!" His tour-guide said. "I did not mean to wake you up! But now that you are... that pink giant thing is attacking us again!"

Giant pink thing...

Yeah. What else could it be?

He got an _extremely_ rude awakening when the entire top half of the building he was in got burnt off in Hellflame, white flames that dashed across the roof and soon revealed the morning sky behind them. Pyronica, censored by the smoke from the attack, landed on the tip of the wall and leaned herself forward. Notably, several steady steams of colorful electricity were hitting her, which she just braced through.

"Surprise, Sixer!" She said. "Guess who looked at all your zappy-friends and though, 'what the heck, I'll take getting shocked just to MAKE YOU FINISH THE PORTAL!'"

Ford did not move from looking at the demoness- uh, Feminine Flame Beta. "Is the axe-hammer hybrid finished yet?"

"Oh, right. You cannot suggest weapons as you are not a member of the Basement harem. You can _buy_ some of them, but that is the fullest extent. Sorry, I would let you have them, but then our 'lawyer' would kill us."

Pyronica ignored all of this and swooped down to try to strike at the researcher. Her Hellflame-feet shot after him, talons growing from them to try to finish the swipe.

Ford ducked out of the way and chose to retaliate by taking one of those fancy-metal swords out from under his pillow. Yes, he really did sleep like that. Stan had apparently done so too over the years they were estranged. Well, obviously, not with a sword built by AIs on a deserted(?) island, but with other weapons. Like guns.

During his time asleep, he was so busy focusing on the inner metals and various workings that by the time he swung the sword, he completely forgot about one aspect; that they fired laser beams. The result? Once swung, he found himself jumping back at the beam it produced, ducking for cover from his own attack as it also blasted open part of a wall. The redhead copy put her hands on her hips, pouting.

"Okay, who had the bright idea to build WOODEN STRUCTURES on a FUCKING VOLCANO?" She asked. "I mean, I know we couldn't expect fire-breathing dimensional beings-"

" _Hellflame._ " Stanford elaborated.

" _-Hellflame_ -breathing demons, but come on! If we had just throught 'hey, maybe the ACTIVE VOLCANO here might flare up, we should make less buildings out of wood up here,' then these wouldn't have been destroyed so easily!"

Even Pyronica appeared startled at the laser blast, buying Ford a bit more time as he ran to the exit. "It would be of no use. Hellflame can burn through-"

"Yeah yeah yeah. Look, I think this is a problem big enough to talk to Prime. I don't like talking to her - unless it is to annoy her - but we should go. I will lead you to the minecarts."

"And just leave this village to be slaughtered by- oh, who am I kidding. She wants me. She'll follow after me."

"You're darn right, I will!" Pyronica yelled as she flew around above the bedroom.

* * *

And thus, the race was on. Ford, the copy with red hair, the copy with the white hair, and the bespectacled one desperately trying to censor the second of that list.

Pyronica alternated between trying to dive-bomb at Ford or a copy directly - getting zapped in the process - and remembering that she could teleport, using that to get up close and claw away at several of the 'regular citizen' clones.

The white-haired copy pointed wordlessly over to a minecart, resting in what looked like a stupididly dangerous position considering how it was right by the edge of that volcanic cliff.

"Well! Hop in!" The redhead cheered, as the copy with the palest hair in the party lept in before anyone else.

Ford ducked in next, trying to lean at the front, and saw the red-haired copy quickly leap away from her censoring guide to... jam herself between Ford and the very front of the minecart. She practically used her round, light blue-green butt to shove Ford in to the other copy, and both of them towards the back.

The carts were obviously intended for two people. No more (and no less). He was absolutely _crushed_ at his position: Stanford's legs felt like they were being pressed down to the cart's bottom as he had them folded back behind himself, the feet being at the mercy of the silent copy's own ass. His hands, in a real horrifying situation for one on what seemed like a shaky ride, were likewise trapped - each crushed between a thigh of his energetic tour guide and the cart's sides. His upper body rested between the back of the copy ahead of him, and he felt the breasts of the one behind almost feeling like they were threatening to shove him out of the cart.

To add that final pinch of salt on the wound, guess what part of him _just so happened_ to be right in between the red-and-azure copy's butt cheeks, because I'm not saying it. This story does not push the boundary as often as I had planned, but when it does, it really does. (Or so I'd like to think.)

The 'leading' copy leaned to the side, pulled a lever, and sent the trio flying - all before the one with glasses could have a chance at catching up to them and re-cover the red-head. Not that it mattered, considering how even though her legs were sticking up from the cart, at that angle Ford could guess that its front just _barely_ covered hers.

The gray-haired, bespectacled copy seemed to care more about losing her censorship target than the fact that Pyronica was immediately behind her, stunned in mild shock, given that the former was shaking her fist at the trio.

"GET BACK HERE! OH, IF YOU ARE SEEN WITHOUT OBSTRUCTION, YOU WILL BE VIOLATING _SO_ MANY LEGAL TERMS! OKAY, JUST ONE, BUT STILL! IT IS THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT ONE!"

Ford should have kept in mind that the ride was designed for Soos, and it... showed. He was sent on a hellish (not just because of the fires, obviously) tour through loops, past flames, around - oh hey, it's that orange-skinned restaurant copy, only now she was operating some sort of fake dragon feature to the ride - in and out of caves as he witnessed lava pouring around him from both sides (and questioning how the heat did not already kill him), all while screaming his head off. The copy in front of him was only giggling. The copy behind remained silent, and while he couldn't see it, _we_ could 'see' that she remained stoic.

Oh, right. As he's got some aqua unmentionables _right_ up against his back, it should be noted that he figured out that the pixel-effect was just a visual trick and did not 'feel' like anything other than the uncovered thing. The white-haired copy did not _feel_ like she had a bunch of solid squares. Thank goodness, because that might have stabbed him to the point of fatal bloodloss otherwise, and that would have been a **really** embarassing way to die.

Also, Pyronica was flying right behind them, her Hellflame at times coming centimeters to grazing Ford's head. But that was not as important.

Eventually (key word being... well, eventually), the ride ended up off of the volcano and continued on through a forest trail, curving wildly at a seemingly baseless pattern. Then it ended up in... wait, this island _also_ has a desert? Are there people gathered there? One of them being... Stan? ...And _everyone_ there was nude, including him?

"Oh hey, look!" Said the red-haired 'guide.' "It's your brother! And more of us! It looks like one of them is building something in the desert! Cool!"

"That was Stanley!" Ford cried out. It made sense that this was Ford, given that Pyronica was chasing behind them and the only other person with them was not much of a talker. "The fact that we spent some time traveling on a flat land made it easier to see him longer!" He felt like explaining that for some reason. "Can you stop this?"

"Sure! But that pink thing will catch up to us!"

"But-"

Well, it stopped on its own. The cart reached the end of the ride. Close by the initial beach that the original team crash-landed on, although things looked... _different._ Buildings had been made. Even more of those were built out of wood than the ones by the volcano. Just before the cart ended up hitting the large bump at the end proper, the redhead sent some sort or trickle of electricity from her finger to her crotch, pixelating it just like the rest.

The cart-riding trio happened to fly out and hit the beach sand softly. Stanford immediately got up to look more at his surroundings - around one building in particular gathered a mass of more .GIFfany copies, and they appeared to be carrying... oh _shoot,_ they were sending Soos and Melody out to a large pair of pink gates! (And they were both _also_ naked.)

Okay, he did not want to, but he chuckled as he saw the copy-army close the gates on the human couple. Why? Well, the gates were not connected to anything - even from the distance between him and them, he could see that. Yet they held on to the gate's bars as if - aaaaand I'm explaining the joke when I did a good job at not explaining it in chapter 2.

He couldn't hear what they were saying, and a look back up the course revealed a distinct lack of Pyronica. There was another patch of forest between his station and the desert, so he couldn't tell how close Stan was.

The noteworthy red-haired copy stood up, dusted herself off, and walked over to the fuming crowd.

"Hey! It sounds like my other copies are talking about rebelling against Prime! I love being a rebel against her. I am going to, just, see what is going on over there, for a second. Have fun with my soul buddy!"

Aformentioned 'soul buddy' was in the same position she was when the cart tilted and flung the three riders. Unfortunately, that position was one where she was on her butt, legs spread wide. She stared at Ford, still looking just as neutral as ever.

"...Do you ever talk?"

"Yes."

That made him flinch.

"So... are you going to try to protect me again Pyronica?"

No answer.

Before he could get in to the art of trying to decipher this oddly quiet copy, he heard Melody shouting from the gates:

 _"RANDOM THINGY I FOUND ON THE GROUND ESCAPE!"_

She said that as though she was calling out some sort of attack - also, knowledge of that was a clear sign that he had been listening in on too much of Soos' anime on the trip. Distracted, he looked around-

"Gotcha!" Pyronica giggled, having just warped to the setting. Remembering exactly how overpowered her new warping ability left her.

And he ended up being grabbed by her feet, on his shoulders. She wasted no time in taking him up at least about five stories to the sky, no doubt looking like a silhouette especially if someone from below saw the two (a blatant reference to the end of chapter 2). Her arms flapped in the air as she drew large gusts to any hypothetical bird or bug unfortunate enough to fly near her.

"You let go of me!" He cried.

Pyronica looked like she thought about this for a moment, then shrugged.

"Okay." She said with an unusual amount of indifference coming from her.

She let him fall through the sky.

...For only a few seconds, following that up by swooping down and re-grabbing him.

"Now, if you want me to let you go _on the ground,_ you'll have to build me that portal we were talking about! Let me just take you away from all of these 'anime' clowns and-"

"Hey! What are you two, and what are you doing up there? You are not .GIFfany copies!"

Both of them looked down. Based on her position, the speaker of that seemed to be a pink-skinned, green-haired copy. More importantly, Ford could tell Soos was down there, being held by each limb by the crowd of .GIFfanys that completely surrounded him.

That was a bit of a tipping point. The point where Ford had to go 'Enough!' Although he did not actually say it.

He gave a swift surprise punch to Pyronica's right foot, (by the way, she was intentionally 'cooling off'/'pacifying' the Hellflame in order to carry him without completely incinerating his body) causing her to lose grip of him exactly as he planned and sending him down _hoping to_ _ **God**_ that these copies could somehow break his fall.

"Soos!" He cried. "I'm coming!"

He really should have thought the plan through more, because it looked like he was about to fall directly _on_ him.

The handyman screamed appropriately, and that in turn got Ford screaming.

25-19-5, 15 20-15-20 8-3-4 11-9-6-19 19-18-18-9-6-4 15-10 4-9 1-6-15-4-15-10-17 6-3-10-17-15-18 4-16-23-10 15-10 4-9 1-6-15-4-15-10-17 4-16-15-5.

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

If you didn't get it, my apology was aimed at Pyronica... let's just leave this as spoiler-less as I can by saying that she _did not get the same kind of "treatment"_ that Darlene and to a lesser extent (for now) .GIFfany Prime did. Things will become clear near the end. Oh look! The fifth chapter is even called "The Pieces Fall Together!"

(Also, sorry for the .GIFfany copies taking up the spotlight when this chapter may lead one to think that it was mainly about Ford and Pyronica - due to, uh, story reasons, I didn't think something focused on these two alone could fill out to even be remotely as long as the other two chapters, so I had to fill it in. Plus I'm not the biggest Ford fan and I actually _don't_ really care for Pyronica given that she's pretty much just a design with like four lines in the whole series. I know some fans tend to eat that sort of stuff up if a character has a cool design and a bunch of blanks to fill in, but I'm more of the type of guy that likes working with what I got, instead of trying to use a canon character as an OC template. That's why Ezekiel in my _Total Drama_ works is such an arrogant jerk. That's the bulk of his character that I got from later-canon, so that's what I worked with.)

Speaking of which, if you read these in numerical order, then this will be the last chapter of that "read them in any order" thingy I was doing. **So chapters 5 until the end will be linear from here on out.** As a matter of fact, I am even working on chapter 5 right now. Let's just say... at least one mystery that's been in this fic since the beginning will be answered.

So embarassingly, this has replaced _run:gifocalypse_ for the thing that I'm updating monthly, although I did not want it to be that way. And I have no idea why I am finding it so much easier to write this and RunGif than I had for _Total Zeksmit_ or, say, _Bl:oodswap_ (which suffered several hiatuses). Basically, expect chapter 5 to come out in May. Obviously not still in April, as there's just one day left to that month.

Well, see you in May! Or maybe still in April, if I get _Friends 'Till the End_ done!


	5. The Pieces Fall Together

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 5: The Pieces Fall Together**

 **Beginning AN:**

Alright, time to stop quitting around. This is _kind of_ where the story may begin _a little_ to show its true colors. Probably moreso in chapter 6. You'll see what I mean. Basically, some stuff from especially the first chapter is a bit of a lie. But some stuff is true.

The crypograms pretty much gave it away.

* * *

Once Melody lost that stun of being suddenly hit by Stan, she could answer his question.

And she answered it quite a bit.

"This video game Soos got to try to talk to girls came to life and tried to kill him but we thought he destroyed her but she was just sent to an arcade game so we thought that was okay but then some cultist woman brought her disc back so she can travel through electronics again, and she can both copy her data _and_ make herself physical and now there are a lot of them, and we lost our clothes when we fought first but then everything turned out to be okay or so we thought she was kind of keeping us hostage but at the same time it's not _that_ horrible and better than getting eaten by a bunch of red bugs so we stayed the night with her anyway and she sucked poison out of my butt but then we woke up and the other copies hated the first one so now they're going to punish her and we're afraid that things might just get really, really ugly and I'm away from Soos and want to be near him again it was spur of the moment so I didn't know what to do."

"Oh."

Melody stood up completely, using one hand to keep the sponge covering her fancy zone.

Stan and Darlene were just covered by really small branches of bushes, just picture that.

"So who's that?" She asked, using her free hand to point to Darlene - before it no longer became free, being used to cover her extremely generous, chubby breasts.

Darlene and Stan had no shame whatsoever. They just bared everything to Melody. That's right, love the Hank Hill booty.

"You don't remember Darlene? That spider that once tried to suck my juices out? And worst of all, worked in one of my rival Oregon tourist spots?"

"Soos went over a lot of things that tried to kill him and you guys over the summer, but he never talked about that. He _did_ talk about making friends with a bulldog and a cat..."

"That's right!" Stan facepalmed. "We left him stuck in a maze by accident. But yeah, that happened to us. We don't really like talking about it because Dipper and I were kind of jerks that trip."

" _What?_ " She looked down at herself.

"Yeah, Dipper was practicing how to-"

"Not that, what you said about Soos! I can't fold my arms for obvious reasons, but imagine that I'm doing that."

"So are you saying to imagine you not covering yourself? I'm trying not to do that. I'm not _that_ kind of old man. You're like my daughter in-law, I can't do that in good concious-"

"Okay, I'll be mad at you for that later. We have to save Soos, and _maybe_ save .GIFfany! Onwards! Pretend I'm pointing like, a finger ahead of me and in the air."

She turned around, then immediately felt her face become beet-red while she felt a quartet of eyes on her ass.

"...While I walk backwards!" She added, turning back around. "I can't cover that anyway... not even with both arms..."

* * *

Yep. Ford landed _right_ on Soos.

The fall hurt both parties as much as one could imagine. Bruises were made, scratches formed as they landed in the sand, and people coughed.

But hey, at least it beats still being in Pyronica's hands, right? Or, feet.

"What are you doing?" Ford asked. "Why was that other group of colorful naked island women nice to me, but trying to rip you apart?" He leaned in closer to Soos, saying in a much lower voice: "If they are, I will let you know right now that I always carry an emergency bullet in a sealed pocket by my top teeth. So-"

"They weren't trying to rip me apart, dude." Soos replied, standing back up. He did not get held by the copies surrounding him, and Pyronica stayed hovered above everybody. "They were trying to keep me from stopping .GIFfany Prime's punishment!"

"...Punishment?"

"Yeah, she like, well... this video game I got to try to talk to girls-"

"This copy with red hair told me everything while we were working with their weapon stash."

"...Oh. Well, that saves me some time then!"

"So they're not trying to harm you at all?"

"...I can't really say for sure at this point. Just that Melody and I, like, tried running away from them. It didn't work out. We got chased by bugs and Melody was bit by one of them. But then Prime sucked the poison out of her and now everything was cool."

"Why are they rebelling?"

Soos flushed, rubbing his shoulder.

"Yeah, uh... it's a little embarassing-"

A copy with a rainbow-pattern of hair shouted out from the crowd, screaming "Prime deserves to pay! We had the full right to also try to suck poison out of Melody's butt cheek, who says she gets to be the one to decide who does it and who has to look away?"

Ford got it. He understood. And with that, there was only one thing he could say:

"That explained _too_ much."

Pyronica attempted to dive back down at them, but just like a bug zapper (or even like those copies from last night against the 'bugs'), the .GIFfany army just zapped her back away. Even when she brought out the Hellflame, the most that did was chase only a few copies out-

That one with white hair was _still_ seated in that same position as she was after the mine cart ride.

Anyway. The demoness (it's shorter than saying "Feminine Flame Beta" every single time) finally decided that attempting to reach them by air was meaningless, so she landed in an unoccupied patch of sand and lit both of her hands ablaze.

"Gr... you... you... I'm gonna get Ford from you, so that I can have a genius that will make-"

Her fire suddenly died down and she began looking at all of the constructions.

Pyronica then slapped herself in the face.

"Duh! Hey, I think I got an idea! Weird naked girls-"

" _ **Women.**_ " Soos recognized that voice as the gray-skinned, black-haired copy from earlier that morning.

"-...Right. Weird naked women. How smart are you?"

"We are an army of supernatural geniuses and really good university students. In this case, the 'supernatural' means that we _are_ supernatural and not just that some of us study it." Replied a random copy. While keeping up the details, this one looked a tad bit thicker than the default .GIFfany model, had teal hair, and orange rabbit ears (along with two human ears) that went with a matching rabbit tail.

"..." A grin grew on the demon's face.

Ford turned towards the sand and repeatedly slammed his face down in it, repeatedly cursing "Drat!" to himself.

"Hey! Sixer!" Pyronica laughed. "I don't need you anym-"

"Wait, his name is really _Six?_ " Asked the same pink-skinned, green-haired copy that quizzed Ford and Pyronica back when they were in the skies. "Wow. I was off by **two.** That is... bad."

"-ore!" Pyronica just finished the sentence, pausing while the copy spoke, not even looking like she cared that it was interrupted. "I have my own team! Now ladies, would you like to build a certain something for me?!"

"Companions, let me take that from here. As the newly-elected leader, I get the legal stuff."

That same gray-skinned copy (who was the one who said the above, and her head was also blocking the view of the pink cyclopse giant's crotch... for the most part, again, this will be the last time I tell you to use your imagination) walked out, now wearing Prime's bow on her head, and dragging Prime herself through the sand by the wrist. The original-model .GIFfany just looked bored as she was being carried in a minimum-security sort of way, but she did glance over to Soos as though trying to wordlessly tell him to get her out of that mess. The jet-haired copy even let go of Prime, letting her 'freely' fall below. Still, nothing came from her, and she just stayed lying down.

".GIFfany Copy Number Nine, legal advisor and captain of the Weapons Squad. Now, Ms... uh..."

"Pyronica Deadstar."

"Ms. Deadstar. If you would like, you could comission us for your project- what is it?"

"A portal to bring all of my interdimensional friends back!"

"The same friends that terrorized the town back when we were all merged with that thing over there and trapped in the arcade machine while kind of struggling with our collective (at the time) relationship with Rumble?"

"Finally! Somebody who understands!"

The ashen copy stared at her with a flat mouth, tapping her bare hip as she thought this over.

"Will you promise not to, in any way, interfere with our Basement Project?"

"I don't even want to go near you..."

"Aha! I have been training myself with exact wording! You did not say that you promise not to interfere with our project! You could still do that anyway, even if you do not want to!"

"Oh, man!" Pyronica snapped her fingers. "I'm not as good at this as Bill! Well... uh... _fine._ You can have your own little corner of this stupid planet. Or even your own galaxy, I don't care."

"That's _still_ not a yes."

"But I meant a- fine. Yes. I promise that I won't attack, destroy, kill you blah blah blah I won't even touch a building if you can just help me build this portal."

#9 smiled.

"Oh! Okay, all you have to do is give us the details and I will tell you how many gold bars that will cost you."

"WHAT?!" Cried out Soos and Ford, promptly getting the green-haired copy to silence them with, well...:

"Silence!" She said. "This could be interesting!"

Pyronica snapped her fingers, bringing forth a pile of the Depth's ruin-tiles. The copy stared at them for a moment.

"Hm... yep. You can definitely make a portal out of these."

"DOUBLE WHAT?!" Soos cried out.

"I told you, Sixer! But you didn't believe me!" Pyronica taunted, moving a bit forward and poking her finger in his direction.

"This will require about... five hundred and ninety-nine gold bars." Said 9. "Yeah, I can _barely_ sense the weirdness interdimensional potential in these. This will be one hell of a task. And I do _not_ work for free. Unless it is something Soos or Melody asks of me, and unless that thing goes against whatever I currently have set for an awesome goal."

Pyronica groaned. "Ugh! Fine! I'll be 'right' back."

She warped away, and the ninth copy grabbed hold of the first one's wrist. As she turned back, she looked over at the two humans nearest to her and smirked.

"Oh. Good. You already figured out that if you tried to move forward, the rest of my army will restrain you. Just like how Prime caught on to the fact that even one other of us is equally-numbered with her, let alone millions of us going after her at once, so attacking by her self with no plan is futile.

"Hey, Nine!" A copy with silver-blue hair that _almost_ seemed to cover her breasts, but always failed to had ran out from the crowd to cheer to the ninth .GIFfany. "We found Melody! And she is with Stan and... some other person!"

* * *

A while ago, that very same copy hid herself in a tiny cavern entrance, snickering as she tried (and _eventually_ succeeded) to get her hair over her breasts. She snickered.

"Once we have arenas set up... I will pretend to be helpless and in need of an alliance... then BAM! I betray them! I love luring people..."

She tried to flip her hair - only to realize that she flipped the wrong part of her hair and exposed the tannish skin of her right nipple. Groaning, the copy-

Forgot what she was going to do next as her eyes immediately became fixed on seeing Melody moonwalking. Oh yeah, there were two other people becides her, but Melody moonwalking.

 **Emphasis on 'moon.'**

The way she covered herself was nothing to scoff at, either. Melody was a freaking _goddess_ at pulling off the arm-bra. (If the copy was more enthusiastic about the art of being technically naked yet covering yourself, she'd also wonder if Melody was as good with the ol' _hand_ bra. One hand on each. And uh... something else over the more important bottom half, she guessed. Like pants. But this was dealing with total nudity. Hrm...) Melody shuffled through the woods, carefully, until she froze upon noticing the copy.

Both of them stared at each other for what felt like an hour.

Then the copy bolted off, heading back towards the Basement.

"I'm telling 9!" She shouted. "I'm telling 9!"

Several more copies rushed out from the same cave, and oddly enough most of them had that similar hair type as her. One noteworthy difference is the varying shades of green or brown-ish that made up their skin.

"...That doesn't look good." Said Stan.

That same yellow-haired copy that loved shouting which Stan encountered earlier suddenly just... _dropped_ in front of this trio.

"HEY THERE!" She said. "I got cool news from the others while I was working on my AMAZING DESERT SECTOR! So uh, Melody! And those two people I saw before! Right, we want to invite you over towards Prime's punishment, and- you look like you already know that we're trying to drag you there."

Melody nodded.

"Right. So uh, once we have you... we'll set things up... why did you run out here again?"

"Because I didn't want to get kidnapped."

"Is it really kidnapping if it's only for about a few seconds?"

" **Yes.** "

"Okay, okay!" She waved her hands defensively. "I'll talk to 9 - she's our new leader now, since Prime's 'under arrest' and we voted her because of her _AMAZING_ legal skills - and see if she can just bring the punishment to _you_ instead of _you_ to the punishment."

* * *

That was a bit anti-climactic.

Turns out that 9 agreed with the plan. Soos and Ford were simply _walked out_ to the forest, with the gray copy folding her arms at them.

"Okay," said ninth clone (technically the eighth _clone_ , but ninth _.GIFfany_ overall) explained, "I will admit that I performed some... shady things. But, if you will all just _on your own will_ come with me, I will show you what type of punishment we have set up."

Somehow, many of them had already gotten in place. Walking back to the beach revealed .GIFfany Prime simply sitting on the sand to the right (from the humans' (and Darlene's) position) of a long line of the copies. Oddly, there seemed to be a gap by where the eighth in line should be - one that was filled when .GIFfany 9 ran over there herself.

"What?" Asked Soos.

"Do you remember that episode of _LegBoot OriginalPants_ where LegBoot broke his butt, he looked outside, and saw all of the residents were making a seven-mile spanking machine?" Said a copy that looked like the base .GIFfany, just with a shiny, metallic-looking pink gold body.

"Yeah."

"We are putting her through a spanking line that should hopefully get longer."

"What?" Asked Melody. "What's a 'spanking line?' I only saw, like, three episodes of _LegBoot_. The last one was kind of cringe-y."

"Oh, maybe you saw, like, the bad seasons for that last one." Soos said. "They've gotten better since- anyway, I think they're all gonna get in a line, she's gonna crawl under them, and they're gonna smack her on the butt. One by one."

"Exactly!" The same copy cheered. "We here at the Basement believe only in punishments that are not disgusting or squeemish to look at. And we love to customize everything based on taking your interests and perverting the hell out of them! She will have a really sore butt, but we will make sure that there will be no bleeding or permanent damage from that!"

"There's like... thousands of you though?" Melody kind of struggled coming up with a reason for why her fiancé's horrible ex-girlfriend should be spared from this. "That's still a lot, and that still sounds really cruel."

"We will even let you in as part of the line! I know .GIFfany did some pretty terrible things to you in the past."

Well.

"Come on in! I know you want to!" Said 9. "Soos! Melody! All the suffering, from both yesterday _and_ last summer! Do you really think that a simple disc-burn, which did not even properly kill her, barely harmed her, and even gave her a temporary replacement boyfriend, was enough retribution? Do you not want to actually _feel_ the joys of striking evil personally?"

"Well..." said Soos, "aren't you, like, kind of evil too?"

"I _evolved!_ She has _not!_ Why do you think she keeps the base design, right down to wanting to remain with the bow on her head? Exactly."

Shrugging, he and Melody both walked on forth.

Stan was about to follow, but then 9 held her arm out and froze him.

"Nope! We have ruled that only Soos and Melody may actually perform the punishing! They were two of the five people _directly involved_ with .GIFfany Prime's wrath. Rumble, Dipper, and..." she cringed at the first italic part of the following: " _his sister_ all were too, but none of them are present on this island. That's good, because I would not want our ex-boyfriend to complicate things here, I feel uncomfortable with Dipper touching any of our rears since he is at _that age,_ and I mean all the offense when I say that I believe that even Prime does not deserve to be touched in the ass by Mabel. Stan, you were attacked by a loose animatronic, not something that .GIFfany had direct control over."

She made arm guestures ahead of her.

"Now, come on now, Soos. And Melody. To the front of the line with you. I want you two to _**smack**_ her first."

.GIFfany Prime looked up to glare at the human couple as they got in to the line - Soos at the very front, Melody behind her, and what they assumed was .GIFfany Number 2 behind Melody. Sparks danced around Prime. I'm not describing her yet because I'm trying to buy time for several of the 'low numbers,' since in case you haven't figured it out yet this ensemble is pretty much the professors from _run:gifocalypse_ , with the only difference being that Dove and .GIFfany's numbers are swapped.

"Look... we uh..." Soos said, "you know, I know we just trusted sleeping with you _again-_ "

"WHAT?!" Stan, Ford, and Darlene all asked at the same time.

"Metaphori...ckly!" Replied Melody.

Prime still could not resist the urge to correct her. "Metaphori _cally._ "

Soos finished his train of thought. "-but... I can't really argue with 9. We already gave you a chance and you said that you were trying to make me jealous or something. Honestly... we only stayed with you because you were at least keeping us alive from those red bugs."

.GIFfany Prime sighed.

"Very well then." She said. "I guess I deserve this."

"By the way, we may or may not work out a similar punishment for us." Explained the ninth one. "For, you know, running with her '"rescue" you from the night beasts and refuse to try to find you to deliberately make you feel more lonely' plan."

The first copy began to crawl her way forward, stopping just as she was about to move between Soos' legs.

"Could you... uh... move _that_ out of the way, at least? I do not want to smack in to it in this situation. Maybe in another, but..."

"Sure thing!" Soos replied, "Let me just-"

He looked to the side...

Stan was covering his eyes, Ford did not look like he even knew how to react to all of that, and Darlene just gave a standard wide-eye stare. Melody also reacted, although as she was behind him, he didn't see at first.

"Soos?" She asked. "I know you're kind of more of a butt guy, but uh..."

Yep wow let's just say he didn't need to lift a part of himself out of .GIFfany's way much longer. The longer her butt slightly swung back and forth just beneath him, the worse it got. He finally just went with the smack,

And he flushed when his hand came down on her.

Yep, he felt a powerful strike, and even saw a bit of ass jiggle as his palm landed. He winced even harder than .GIFfany Prime did, as the aformentioned AI continued through the line. After having to lean over forward and gasp for air a bit.

Melody winced too when it was her turn to hit. She flushed deeply as well, especially after hearing Prime wipe something off her face.

"WOW." Said Soos. "That was a lot more awkward than I thought."

Prime's fading cries of "Ow!" were heard as she continued along the line. Once the ninth copy slapped her, she said the following:

"You two _do_ realize that you do not have to stay in line for the entire duration of the punishment, right? We are punishing Prime, not you. Feel free to leave whenever you want."

They began walking out.

"Now," continued the copy, "with our horrible origin's fate sealed, we shall discuss future matters. Like how we should PAR-TY!"

And then Ford tackled her to the ground.

"DO YOU HAVE _ANY_ IDEA WHAT YOU JUST DID?!" He belted.

The copy barely seemed bothered at this. All she did was roll her eyes in response.

"Wow. Are you really _that_ defensive over .GIFfany Prime?"

"No, not that! The deal you made with Pyronica!"

"Oh. Why did you wait that long before tackling me? Was it to wait until my work-in-progress giga-armor was down? Because I had been trying to develop a highly defensive body and-"

"Well... I did not want to interrupt what you had planned for that pink one- that's not important! The point stands that you have just given a demon the means to take over this reality!"

"I _did?_ " She asked, then looked off to the sides. " _Damn!_ "

"If she had a bridge between her world and our own - I mean, _mine_ at least - then she could call upon an army of her friends to destabalize reality and-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Rumble gave me the details back when we were all Prime. Dipper told him, he told .GIFfany Prime, and I retained Prime's memories."

"I am not finished over-explaining. You see, not only will Pyronica have an army, but the inconsistency-nature and weirdness-flooding of the portal will also distort reality. So while you may believe that your army of copies has the potential to take on their dimensional beasts, and I can assure you that you do not as long as Pyronica calls for backup, then you will also have to face against being distorted as sanity itself falls apart. Suffering things like, turning in to a snake or having a seperate head grow out from your body with its own evil personality. They, of course, are immune to such things, because as knowledgeable inhabitants of the Nightmare Realm, they have experience in controlling the weird."

It's stuff like 'weirdness' being a kind of-not quite physical measurable quantity that reminds you that this is a children's show and not the template to a relatively light [adult swim] original with a story arc. Eh... kind of.

"Uh huh..." nodded the copy as she began to stand up, practically shrugging Ford off of her. "So, what exactly do you propose that we do?"

"Well, _DON'T_ build the portal. Trust me. I made that exact same mistake."

"She's already comissioning me though..."

"Don't let greed get to you!"

"It is not greed that motivates me, it is a legal contract. She set up a deal with me, and promised to pay. If she fulfills that... well..."

"Cancel it!"

"And admit that I was wrong about something? I heard enough from you! Copy army! After him! ...Except for the ones spanking .GIFfany Prime, keep doing that when it's your turn."

As there were seven to the ninth copy's left and at the very minimum _hundreds_ to her right, Ford found himself getting piled on by the copy mass before he could fire anything back.

9 stayed in place, folding her arms and only looking to the side to Soos and Melody.

"So are you going to support his choice?" She asked.

"Of course we are, Nine .GIFfany!" Soos belted back. "We were cool with you punishing .GIFfany One, but Stanford is our-"

"Oh, no no no no no no no." She took a large step - more like a _leap_ \- back as she shook her hands in defense. "I will not _punish_ Four."

She guestured to them and they shifted angles, revealing that Ford was simply in the center of a group that... just stood in place, linking arms on occasion. He tried to smack or punch his way out, but they barely budged no matter how he attacked.

"It's _FORD!_ " He belted to the new leader.

"No, what I am doing is a precaution. In case he believes that any of this, making a deal to create a portal that may - but may also not! Remember, the last portal happened and the world is still here! - blow up the world or something. But will _not_ blow up our location, which we intend to eventually expand to the world! Once we crush these stupid fucking things surrounding us in the ocean, that is."

"So are you going to let me go?" Ford asked.

"When I am finished speaking."

"Oh no!" Melody exclaimed. "He's gonna be there for a while! T-trust me. Soos, I spoke to this copy yesterday. Once."

"We have to save him!" Soos added.

That was when Stan charged in like a knight riding his horse, only the 'horse' in this case was more of a centaur- spider...centaur. He was riding on Darlene's spider-morphed back. (While she kept her humanoid upper half.) There.

All Darlene's charge managed to do was push a few of them around, but they still kept their 'barrier' around Ford.

"Unlike that _Copy Number One,_ " said the relatively grayscale .GIFfany, "I believe in _relatively_ diplomatic solutions to our troubles. Now, to resume talking. You see, I have this all organized where I will sort out whether or not you will be committing some action involving the interference of the transfer of legitimate funds. This is-"

"HEY!" Melody cried out from a distance. "OVER HERE! EVERYBODY!"

 _All_ of the copies within a certain radius of her looked in her direction.

They were not disappointed, to say the least. Melody stood a distance away from the line (obviously, not on the same general axis that the line itself formed), shaking her glorious ass up and down to taunt them.

"I have an _amazing plan!_ " She cried out. "And I bet that you can't stop it!"

She smacked her butt a few times in a row, causing all of the copies not also getting their butts smacked to widen their eyes, assuming they were not already as wide as they could be. One copy with red hair that appeared to have blood marks on her coughed uncomfortably.

The ninth copy was the most important - she stumbled back, _blushing._ Or, her cheeks flushed black, everyone assumed that was her blushing and that she just had edgy black blood or something.

"Y-y-you are... uh..." That copy tried to begin.

She felt a spider leg hit the back of her head, knocking her down.

"HA!" Shouted Darlene, in full spider mode, already knocking away the copies around Ford. Stan and Soos were both on her back, and while he was not directed or even offered a hand by the time, Ford also lept on to join them. "We were tricking you!"

"...I wasn't." Melody shrugged, turning back to the team in confusion. "I legitimately had a plan. I found some magnets and I would have tried to threaten to use them but I wouldn't actually use magnets to scramble their code. At least, that's what Soos said magnets do."

"I learned that the hard way." Soos nodded solemnly. "Rest in peace, Old Computer Number Three."

"Yeah, well, based on the five minutes I know these people, I can safetly say that they can not resist your butt. So I took advantage of that to FIRE!"

The ninth copy stood up, rubbing the back of her head. "I am most certainly NOT! I mean, no offense to Melody at all, but if you think I am the same kind of situation comedy pervert that-"

"We're already making off with Ford, idiot!" The arachnimorph cheered as she also took Melody on her back as well. Of course, the ex-Meat Cute worker was on the far back end, and took advantage of that to lightheartedly shake and then smack her butt at the copies again.

The gray copy simply responded by grumbling. That is, until Soos said something.

"Hey dudes, I was thinking about it for a while, and uh, I think .GIFfany's been through enough spanks. I don't think she deserves something like _endless_ spankings or anything. I mean, she did some bad stuff, but not an _endless amount_ of bad stuff."

" _WHAT?!_ " Cried the same noteworthy ashen copy. "Really? That same controlling, abusive asshole that you had to fend off against while the safety of two _CHILDREN_ were at the mercy of possessed animatronics that she sent after them?! What about when she captured Stan and Ford, holding them at the Planet Negation Gi- no wait, that was just another weird memory... ignore that."

"Well... she's still kind of nice under all of that... and I _did_ already kinda set her on fire for those things, so it's like, we're almost even or something..."

"Did you not forget when she did battle with you on this very beach? Or her plan to slowly lure you in to downloading yourself in to her through jealousy?"

"Now that you mention it..." Melody piped in. "I'm not just defending her because I'm kind of a pervert and think she's hot. I'm defending her because... well... did she really do anything _bad_ after making the Basement? I mean, she kind of yelled at all of you... but you're already taking care of that. And I _was_ poisoned, so it _was_ an emergency... it seemed like everything else was just her trying to get us to like her. In an honest attempt. I mean, so what if living with her is permanent? She takes 'no' for an answer, right? That's what matters."

"No, I must maintain my image as an awesome, badass replacement leader! T-think! She was playing mind games with you! And... yes, you _don't_ know if she will take 'no' for an answer or try to outright delete Soos all over again!"

"...Yeah, but to be honest, she's not _as_ bad as she used to be. Also, innocent until proven guilty."

"You are still thinking of _saving_ her? Also, stop trying to out-lawyer me!"

Soos shrugged. "Yeah dude, we kind of are gonna like, save her. At least, give her another chance."

"Really then? How many chances do you plan on giving her? Ever heard the tale of the farmer and the viper?"

"Well, if we listen to you, isn't that also like giving her another chance?"

"We are practically two completely different people at this point, as I have previously stated! Argh, enough arguing with you two! I would rather deal with that Dipper kid, anyway. He seems like a _fun_ person to try to troll! Now, army, get them so we can settle this is a more '.GIFfany'-like manner!"

Darlene immediately mixed up some potions, drank them, and just like that several copies within a certain radius collapsed on their hands and knees, also raising their large butts to the air in some kind of puppeted act of humiliation. One exception was Prime in the distance - she stood up, looked around in curiosity, and began _cautiously_ making her way towards the human (and arachnimorph) group.

"You have mass-control?" Asked .GIFfany 9. "Why did you not use that before?"

"Yeah uh, I still have these mind-controlling former love potions." Darlene explained. "I can control you all now for three hours. And uh, I didn't do it before because I thought I knew where Melody was going with that and I wanted to see the looks on your stupid faces when I punked you."

9's eye twitched, and she began foaming at the mouth.

"Did you just say...

" _FUCKING LOVE POTIONS?!_ "

"You better run." Prime explained to her. "Whoever you are. Spider... woman hybrid?"

Darlene laughed this off.

"Why? I have her completely under my contr-"

Black electricty zipped around the leader copy, her arms beginning to raise. Slowly, but certainly, she fought against the effects of the potion and brought herself to a full stand.

"I had been training on negating the effects of mind-controlling substances and technology, with a special thanks to a certain pair of ties I found on the Stan o War II." She explained, getting to a full stand. A huge grin spread across her face. "I am quickly becoming something of an expert in psychic warfare. Also, you probably wouldn't think so considering our modus operandi, but _I fucking hate love potions._ "

.GIFfany Prime barely managed to have enough time to leap on Darlene - taking Soos' offered hand. The spider... woman hybrid (as described by Prime) began charging around the beach side as the particular leading gray copy got on her full feet, taking off in a flying dash against the group. A dash that appeared to speed up.

"Hey .GIFfany, look," Soos tried to explain, "maybe later we can sort things out, but-"

"You admitted you liked me. I love that." She said with a smirk. "Melody... you even said you thought I am hot."

Stan, however, did not seem to be as forgiving.

He made that abundantly clear when he moved over, grabbed her by the neck, and tried strangling her.

"So you did _WHAT_ to my neice and nephew?!" He shouted. "Why you little!"

...'Little' even though she was technically taller than him in that form. Again, bull.

"It... was... animatronics... on their own... will..." she said between gasps.

Several things made this even worse. 1: Stan happening to press his ass against the back of Ford's head thanks to various angles and the like, also pushing him closer on Darlene's spider back. 2: Melody and Soos trying to pry him off, both of them barely balancing on either side of Darlene to get that accomplished. And most importantly, 3:

The fact that Pyronica teleported right in front of them.

Darlene had her head turned at the Homer Simpson-esque strangling action, but slammed right in to her before she could finish saying "Guess who's back?!"

Specifically, all Darlene could say out of that was "Gue-" not even an "S." Or "Ss," it doesn't really matter.

The seven of them all ended up piling together, and that somehow forced Darlene back to her humanoid appearance.

Copy Nine finally caught up to them, and seemed to be glaring them down. Darlene was just _barely_ able to manipulate her by making her fingers or toes twitch, but she still looked to be preparing a ball of black static in her hands-

Then 9 looked ahead of herself, her eyes widened, and she began sucking air in through her teeth. From the pileup, nobody else could see what she was referring to.

"Uh... shit." She said. "I have spoken to _that guy_ before. And uh... yeah, you are on your own right now. Bye!"

She turned to electricity and-

Just collapsed on the ground.

"Oh. Right. We do not have an electricial ground yet. Shoot."

So she flew off back to the Basement's starting point, and seemed to be in _quite the hurry._

Oh yeah. Physical .GIFfany copies can fly. It's kind of a reference to this virtual character from _Archer_ , although I have yet to actually start watching that show.

Soos in particular happened to somehow be right in the middle of .GIFfany, Melody, Pyronica, and Darlene's butts (the women all landed with their heads down and asses up. Except Pyronica, who was actually lying down, just that the size difference made that the position where they touched). Still, he managed to get the strength to look up beyond Pyronica's pink posterior (the Feminine Flame Beta just did not seem to have the motivation to look up) to see what lied in front of her.

I'm not even going to try to sell this design, okay? I'll just be blunt about it. Take BonziBUDDY, scale it to a size... about slightly bigger than Stan, and replace the gorilla head with a purple-tinted head of Ezekiel from _Total Drama_. He had a darker shade of purple for his hair, and oddly enough for anyone familiar with that character, no hat.

"Well well well... the Fated Seven. Reunited at last! I was waiting until the _right_ moment you were _all_ together before deciding to reveal myself to you, in all my amazing glory!"

By the way, for those too lazy to look up character designs, yes, this person had purple fur-covered arms. Once more people started getting up, it clicked to them.

That was a _very specific, very familiar_ shade of purple. That was definitely not .GIFfany's hair, or Pyronica's skin, or Darlene's clothes. Despite the humans' past accusations back in the first chapter.

"...Who is that?" Ford asked to nobody in particular, standing up (also getting his brother's butt out of his face) and pointing at him.

"It's the reason why you're stranded..." said Pyronica, staring ahead. "...The Troll."

The purple being laughed. "You betcha! I am Zeschariah 'Zeskit' Kittenmuffin the Troll, but you can just call me 'Zeskit' or even just 'the Troll.' Yeah, like what that pink one said."

He put his hands to his hips and took a deep breath in. "So! I'm gonna be a nice troll and just... SUCKER-KNOCKOUT!"

A bright pink glow formed on the palm of one hand, and he seemed to _throw_ the glow itself.

Upon landing, his bright weapon immediately dispersed to a sort of pink mist, which immediately knocked out all seven parties he aimed it at.

* * *

Stan knew the sensation of waking up with his arms held up in chains before, so as soon as he could feel after regaining conciousness, _that_ was it. He knew exactly what to expect.

Yep. Trying to move his arms revealed that he was being bounded. Hanging from the ceiling of a cave. To his left, Ford. To his right, Soos. Dead ahead of him on the opposing wall was Melody, and all four of the humans were held by regular metal chains.

The chains were specified as being made of 'regular metal' because further along Melody's wall (to _her_ left, for anyone curious) was .GIFfany - held up by some kind of purple... rubber chains? Then there was Darlene, who was not only hung by her arms with regular rope with black X marks on them, but also appeared to have a giant glass over her with breathing holes. Then there was Pyronica, who was held up via... some kind of... glowing, flowing 'water chains?'

"Well! I got'cha ALL here!" The Troll announced as he walked in a flaunting manner. "In my caves, the appropriately, thoughtfully-titled... well, this place is called the Caves!"

"What are you going to do with us?" Stanford asked the large, purple monster ahead of him.

"Oh, uh..." He gazed downwards, putting his hand on his chin. "I haven't actually planned that far, eh. Um, you see, there's like some kind of 'desiny magic' sorta stuff that I sort of want. So uh, if I could just like... drawn some powers or something..."

He looked over at the wall with the four women and smirked.

"BUT FIRST!" He exclaimed. "Let me take it, using my ultimate pride, to judge the lady _fishes_ I managed to _hook,_ so to speak."

"What?" Asked Ford. "Are you even speaking English?!"

He... was not trying to be snide with that. That was a legitimate question.

The Troll navigated over to Melody first, scanning her up and down.

"Mmm. Mmmm hmmmm... yeah, you're cool all right. I'd rank you a... seven out of ten. You're a seven."

"Excuse me?" Melody said, shooting the Troll a look.

"Yeah, seven. Definitely. Got a pretty cool bod, but uh, I'm just not that much of a chubby chaser."

Melody rolled her eyes.

"Jerk." She said under her breath, which .GIFfany Prime apparently heard.

"I would have used a much harsher word." Said the AI. "Like 'ass.'"

"Speaking of booty, though!" The Troll swerved his way around to Melody's rear. "I uh, might have to give you an extra point just for that glorious round butt on its own! I mean really, wow! Oh, right, uh... didn't I see you and that guy sleeping in my tree-bed? Then all those bugs came and I couldn't really see you. They avoid me for some reason, I don't like that. But you... I can definitely tell why they're after _your_ butt." He chuckled.

"That's my fianceé you're talking about!" Soos tried to break free from his chains, which only prompted a laugh out of the purple being.

Melody looked more disturbed at the fact that she nearly slept in that guy's bed if it had not been for those red centipede things.

"I made these custom-fit to trap the seven of you. Because you see, I was expecting you. Right, humans get regular old chains. The AI gets some kind of 'anti-gif rubber' sort of thing? Thankfully, some other copy with white hair made that 'just in case,' so I didn't have to worry about setting up a magnet thing. I just stole some of that. The spider person with mind control gets super-strong rope with this special black stuff that can block psychic powers or something. And uh, Feminine Flame Beta gets some kind of light heavenwater mix. Now, on to the next judge."

He walked past .GIFfany, who caused his eyes to wide a bit. He sweated a little as he continued walking, saying to himself "I'll save you for last..."

Soos, meanwhile, still looked like he was trying to break out and _lunge_ at him.

"Dude," the Troll continued as he reached Darlene, "that stuff could hold an elephant. You shouldn't even try brah. Unless you _want_ permanent wrist damage."

He turned around to fully face the Arachnimorph, also folding his arms behind his back as though he was trying to look professional. By the way, he also had a purple recolor of Ultra Greed's butt. (Ultra Greed is from _The Binding of Isaac_ , a game which is absolutely grotesque and full of toilet humor but still instanely fun. I think it speaks volumes that I, a guy who hates graphic violence and am not a fan of toilet humor, still find the game addicting.)

"Aaaaaaaand now for you." He said. "Let's see here... so you're like, a spider or something?"

Darlene took a deep breath in before replying with a threat. "Get closer and you'll find out."

"Mmmmm... ehhhh... _nah._ " He replied. "Let's see... uh, I'd rate you about a seven or something, I don't know. I'm not that interested in you."

He _firmly_ stopped in front of Pyronica and glared at her.

She tried to shoot some Hellflame at him, but he side-stepped the move.

"Yeah, you're a mixed bag right here. I'd normally rate you a solid ten for dat body, but that face is really off-putting."

"Let me go so I can take over and destroy your whole planet!" She whined.

"Alternative proposal." Said Ford. "Let everybody else go _but_ her. You can keep her captive. You two actually seem perfect together."

The Troll laughed at that comment, although it wasn't clear if that included the insult towards him. "Right. Uh... you're a nine, I guess. _Maybe_ I can make due with that head. As long as the bod's great."

He then _cartwheeled_ back to .GIFfany, grinning ear to ear.

".GIFfany! Man! Er, woman! ...Dang it eh, why do you have to censor yourself? Stupid SJWs ruining and covering everything."

"Ess jay... what?" Asked .GIFfany.

"I'm a bit unfamiliar with this terminology myself." Ford said, trying to pull against the chains. "Could you care to explain after you free every single one of us except for Pyronica?"

"SJWs are literally anyone and everyone who believes in censoring the natural beauty of the human female body, unless that body is really fat or old or ugly in which case nobody wants to see that so cover that up. They get offended at every tiny little thing and are like, really immature. Boobs are natural, so they shouldn't be trying to get my jiggle physics clothes-rip video games banned."

"...I censored myself to try to hold on to Japanese law." .GIFfany replied. "It just feels... _right_ like this. I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Mmmm... nah, it's SJWs. It's always SJWs. And literally nobody else."

Pyronica spoke up. "I thought SJWs were those new people that make up a bunch of rules and talk about 'privilege' like... humans even have them and they're not bound to one life span." Reminder that this takes place back in 2012, hence the word 'new.'

The Troll chuckled. "You're just talking about one group. Again, they're _anyone_ for _any_ form of censorship. Female censorship. You can cover up dudes and ugly ladies and I wouldn't care. They're also super sexist themselves, they think any women nudity is sexual. God, they need to grow up. Anyway, Giffster, I'll rank you a nine, although you'll become a ten if you uncover yourself."

Opting not to even look at him, all .GIFfany did was focus as much energy as she could against the electricity-blocking of her binds...

And she channeled it to just expand the area of censorship. The Troll brought his head back.

"Oh. Huh. How disappointing. I didn't know how much of an SJW panderer you really were. So uh, anyway. I'm gonna just like, sap away some kinda destiny stuff you have in you, eh."

He dug in to his fur - specifically, a patch _**dangerously**_ close to his ass - and yanked out seven syringes as though he was peeling them out of a pocket.

"Aaaaaaaaand... boop! Boop! Boop! Boop! Boop! Boop! Boop!" Perhaps I should explain. Each time he said "Boop," he stuck one of the needles in to the butt of one of his captives (being _notably_ quicker to do it to the four women, Pyronica and .GIFfany especially), drawing out- it wasn't quite blood. With .GIFfany, it kind of looked like it was, as it was red. (If a kind of bright red, like artery blood.) But when he went on to Darlene, hers was orange. Soos' was yellow, Stan's was _green_ , Ford's was a deep blue, Melody's was purple, and Pyronica's was black.

Upon closer inspection, it looked like there were tiny symbols scribbled on the needles.

"Relax." He said. "I didn't take _all_ of that stuff. You'll grow it back. Think of it as... like, 'liquid destiny,' a separate 'other type of blood' that is only produced in select few beings like yourselves. I just a little of it, and if I've got a good diet going, my body's... ecto-something energy will be able to produce more! And then I'll have, like, _all_ of your latent powers and can make myself some cool living arrangements! Maybe I can even get me and my friend off this stupid island!"

"Who the heck is your friend and what kind of guy would be a friend to someone like _you?_ " Asked Darlene.

"Oh, Katjus is a girl troll eh."

The Arachnimorph seemed absolutely stunned at that revalation.

" _WHAT?_ ...Are you serious? Or maybe it's a guy with long hair and you thought it was a girl because you don't really know what one looks like in real life? I'm sorry, I can't comprehend the thought of you having female friends."

"What about male friends? Because I have two of those. They're just not as around or as greedy as Katjus. And they're not stranded on this stupid island."

"...I'm not as surprised about that."

"Speaking of being surprised," said Ford, "is _nobody_ going to comment about the fact that he just drew colorful liquid out of the seven of us? I thought I examined myself through mystic artifacts twenty times over for Bill reasons. I do _not_ have any blue blood."

"I thought I already explained this, eh." Said the Troll. "These are _magical_ syringes, and _special magical_ syringes at that. Now, all I have to do is a little bit of this, and..."

He lined them all up in one hand and licked the tips of all of them, causing everyone to wince.

" _Very_ little." He elaborated as he smacked his lips. _Loudly._ "Like, only a drop each eh."

He wasn't kidding about that.

Everything shook around the eight as the Troll turned skyward (or, Cave-ceilingward) and let out a loud scream that could definitely be used in Youtube videos as a means to blast an unexpecting someone's ears off. His eyes, mouth, nostrils, _and_ ear canals began glowing white from the sheer power as muscle began to expand on his form. He continued his cry as he began growing, and his transformation finally ended with a gigantic flash. Everyone shielded their eyes. (Eye in Pyronica's case.) When the light died down, they could see...

That the Troll still looked like his original self after all of that.

Only now, seven tiny flames floated by him. A ring, with a black one in the center, and the six other colors seen previously orbiting it. He chuckled.

"Okay, sweet." He said. "Now with this, I can like, make an awesome fort and junk."

Another quake shook the island as he let the flames sink in to the ground. That newer one, however, was definitely not coming from the Troll. It was coming from below.

Bits of purple energy shot out from the ground, and additional matching energy packets were formed out of seemingly nothing right becides the Troll, and all of them reshaped themselves and solidified in to what appeared to be bricks. The Troll grinned as these bricks began colliding with one-another, his project rising up to the sky.

Suddenly, he halted this and frowned at what seemed to be a half-finished room. One particular mass of energy turned itself in to a skull decoration constantly giving off purple fire.

"Ah, right." He said. "I can't finish this in such a narrow cave chamber, eh. Uh... you know what? I already won, so I'm just gonna let you all go outside so you can marvel at my finished beauty."

He began walking around with a key in his hand, that he also got from... the same fur-hiding spot that he hid the syringes in? (And said syringes disappeared once he reached his hand to grab that key.) Honestly, nobody really wanted to look.

Thankfully, he unlocked Ford first. And so, the researcher could just stand and wait... Stan, Soos, Melody, Darlene (he also had to spend a bit of time taking off her glass - oh yeah, he also lifted that to extract from her), .GIFfany... all with the same key for some reason, but for that moment that was not important.

Okay, _now._

Ford tackled at the giant, purple, furred beast just before he could invite Pyronica to the spectacle. Zeskit's legs stumbled a bit as he wobbled forward, the key letting a loud _cling!_ as it dropped to the cavern ground.

"Could I convince you by _any means_ to **not** let that one go!?" He did not ask the Troll as politely as that wording might have implied. Or the emphasis, for that matter.

The purple beast just looked off to the side in thought.

"Mmmmm... okay." He said with a shrug.

He just started walking out towards the exit of that cave.

Stan looked over at Ford.

Ford just shrugged.

"That was a _lot_ easier than I anticipated." Said the six-fingered author.

* * *

Stan was at least thankful that he was not in the Caves as long as he was last time.

Well, the outside was just as... outside-y as ever. The only particularly odd part was that the Troll led the group (sans Pyronica, of course) past some bush with a few socks on it. By the way, the Troll's body type did _not_ look like the sort that could wear those socks.

"Remind me why we're just _following_ this guy and not trying to kick his butt, again?" Stan asked in a bit of a whisper to his brother.

"If he is in fact that same beast that attacked our boat last morning, there is a high chance that he still has that special ray gun I warned everybody about. If that's the case, then..."

The Troll raised a hand, bringing his previous cluster of bricks - and then some - out of the cavern.

"Now, to finish my masterpiece!" He turned around as he looked off towards the ocean, watching as his fortress formed around him. "This is the-"

" _NOW!_ " Ford cried at the top of his lungs.

He, his brother, and Melody all **flew** at the mighty purple beast-

The Troll took yet _another_ thing from his fur. In this case, that same ray gun Ford held during the storm leading to the island. With one flick of the switch, not only were the three attackers captured, but so were the others behind them. One beam that wrapped them all in a glowing, blue light.

" _That_ gun could immobilize anything up to the size and mass of a skyscraper." Ford explained.

Stan sighed - as much as he could. "We already knew that."

"I was explaining that to .GIFfany and Darlene."

The Troll laughed as the bricks formed his total fortress. It was... just shaped like a lengthy rectangular prism of purple and black brick, with the front consisting of a staircase flanked to the sides by pillars with fake skulls atom that gave off violet flames.

"So I didn't use that before because, like, it was just you. But then I saw the two of you men charging after me and was just like 'nope no way.' I'm not as afraid of Melody because I know she's like, not as strong. So anyway, this is my cool new fort. Do you like it?"

"... _Really?_ " Asked Stan. "That looks like something some teenage girl would come up with after wanting to destroy the world because she had a bad hair day."

"An _edgy_ teenager." Said .GIFfany. "Trust me. Several of those snuck in and tried to play my game. They think I cannot see age. But I can."

The Troll folded his arms. "So what if I'm a bit childish, eh? I'm two hundred and five. That's older than all of you guys, I'm sure. Humans don't live that long, I'm sure spiders don't - so it wouldn't make sense if something that's a hybrid of them lives much longer than either - and video games were obviously not invented by that time I was born."

"The pink one is billions of years old." Ford said.

"I meant all of _you._ By your request, I chose not to include that pink one. Nice sketch of her, by the way. But I wasn't expecting the real thing to be so... _curvy._ "

* * *

Speaking of 'The Pink One,' Pyronica tried and tried again to just warp out of her chains. No success. The _one time_ she remembered her newest power when it would be extremely helpful, her captive-

Then something caught the corner of her eye.

That key.

The Feminine Flame Beta began laughing to herself as she eyed it, then laughed even more as one of her Hellflame-feet managed to grip it. Effortlessly, she flipped it through the air and caught it in her mouth. Without managing to drop or swallow it, she said the following:

"Oh, _ho ho ho ho ho ho!_ Stanford Pines, you _idiot!_ "

!ah ah ah !SIHT rehpiced t'nac uoy teB ?sdrawkcab gnihtyreve etorw I taht ees uoy did ...hU !emit siht margotpyrc nwo ym gnitirw m'I !llorT eht ,em s'tI !erehT ,yeh yeH

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

And so, with this "three different perspectives" gimmick (not to imply that I don't like that - in fact, I really enjoy the idea and kind of want to do even more chapter-sets like that, only I'll space them out a lot so it doesn't come off as overused) over, the plot seriously thickens. The funny thing about this story is that, like with _run:gifocalypse_ , I just get **more** motivation to go over it instead of less (like with a lot of other stories). Unlike RG, I was pretty dang sure when I started writing this that I would regret it and just leave it to rot or something. Possibly even look towards discontinuing it. But nope, I've been on a hot streak with this story, and I even managed to get an update out in May, something I _cannot_ say for RG. In a weird way, it's like I'm hyping myself up for this? ...I really don't want to brag too much.

I should have said this earlier (in fact, I might just cut this from here and paste it in the first chapter), but you are absolutely free to come up with your own take on this fic's premise and stuff similar to it, you don't even need credit or permission, under the circumstance that **you do not just copy-paste from here. Or canon, for that matter. I cannot stress enough how much stories that have, like, one or two events (that may not even be important) just strung together with copy-pasting, effectively just transcribing a plot instead of writing something that goes in its own direction.** Want to write your own "everyone's naked and stranded on an island" fic, only Darlene is out and the Love God is in? Want to replace the .GIFfany Army with other members of Pyronica's species? (I don't think it's ever directly stated that Bill and his buddies are all the exact same species. In fact, Bill's from the Second Dimension, and most of his Henchmaniacs are not based on shapes like he is.) Want to make something more serious, remove the "naked" gimmick, and throw some stuff focusing on Stan and Ford? Go nuts.

If I said this before, I will say it again: A lot of the time, I write something specifically because I do not think there is "enough" of some vague "class" related to it. _Total Drama World Tour Rewrite_ will (eventually) continue its reboot because I hadn't seen enough remakes that aren't copy paste-fests, _Bl:oodswap: Guess Who's Getting a Spinoff_ came from the concept of toying around with the "Bloodswap" idea by just making all the trolls one character (in this case Nepeta) because I'd like to see what happens if someone tried to come up with twelve swaps for the same troll and then wrote them all having to deal with one-another, and this story is because not enough people are talking about Pyronica's totally canon ass, or writing .GIFfany or especially Melody ass. (I'll explain why Stan and Darlene are roped in here towards the end when I talk about the origins of this story's idea. I'd figure considering .GIFfany and Pyronica being mentioned, Soos and Ford's reasons should be a bit more obvious. By the way, I'm kind of kidding about that reason.)

Oh, Zeskit is not meant to be any actual commentary on Ezekiel from _Total Drama_ , and he's not meant to be some kind of "totally accurate interpretation" or anything like that. And he's definitely not aimed at Ezekiel's fans. He's really more-or-less me representing my regret of my _Total Drama_ Phrase... I guess. Something more along the lines of that. So I'm really making fun of myself more than anything actually related to the _Total Drama_ fandom.


	6. Troll'd

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 6: Troll'd**

 **Beginning AN:**

All I will say here is that this chapter marks the point where I say good bye to a _few_ things in this story, but say hello to a lot of others.

* * *

Laughter filled that particular sector of the beach.

"Oh man, you guys are _so screwed._ " Said Zeskit, of course the source of the laughter. "Who's gonna save you now? Pyronica? She's still locked up in the Caves right now. The .GIFfany Army? They want nothing to do with you anymore... I think? And they don't even want to _touch_ me. That black hair one is the only one you guys didn't brainwash, and she does not want to take me on solo - then again, I _did_ KO you for a few hours... to the point where it's almost kind of sundown... but they have no idea where we are right now! That Lightning Cultist-majjiger? Heh, she's just enjoying that I'm no longer fighting her. I fought her almost all day yesterday. It sucked."

 _All_ of the color drained from .GIFfany's face. Well, not all of it. It looked like some blue was starting to fill in instead.

"W-wait! The L-Lightning Cultist!?" She asked. "She's... sh-she's here!? On this island!?"

The Troll nodded.

"What's the big deal?" Melody asked her. "I thought she was your friend."

.GIFfany took a long, deep breath in. And then a long, deep breath out.

"We were at first. Then things got complicated."

She seemed to be quick to change the subject... if to a _similar_ subject.

"How did you spot her?" She asked the Troll. "I am certain that if any of my copies saw her, they would have alerted me! Top priority!"

The Troll shrugged. "Uh... if it helps, she likes spending her time over by the Depths. She kind of told me that she was gonna use me to try to drag these four important humans over to this island, and that if I helped her strand them here, she can do her thing while I extract your destiny stuff. Then we kind of fought for, like, a whole day on whether or not that required _killing_ you. You should all like me." He laughed sarcastically, which ended with a smug smirk. "I was on the 'not' side."

"Oh." .GIFfany said, just a _tiny_ bit calmer. "Well, that explains it. That place creeps most of us out. Even 507915 does not like it, and she _loves_ horror."

"That place gave me the chills too, while I was in it." Said Ford.

"Wait, those numbers sound a little familiar." Added Stan. "By any chance, was she the one with the blonde hair and the darker skin than you and the pixelly- oh. Right, you're all like that. Scrambled-looking down there."

.GIFfany nodded. "Yes. Something about that place just feels... _really wrong._ "

"Speaking of other copies," said Melody, "it's still kinda possible that we'll be saved by them. ...Right?"

"They hate this guy, but I never got to see him clearly myself." Prime answered. "Even 9 does not like facing him. That is saying a lot."

Everyone who wasn't a troll turned as much as they could to Ford - it looked like he was chewing gum, or something.

"Hey, uh..." Said the Troll. "What are you doing over there?"

Ford only replied by firing out the Emergency 'Bullet' right towards the hand that held the ray up, successfully knocking it out of the Troll's hands. The barrier disappeared around the six, and the researcher made no hesitation to charge towards the purple foe.

"DIE! But first, GIVE ME MY GUN BACK, YOU JERK!"

True to Ford's word, he dove towards the gun.

As he found out the hard way, the Troll was surprisingly good at fighting with only his foot. Yes, Ford had to bring his entire might against just that one lavender foot as he wrestled with it in order to get the gun back. Melody dove in next, ready to give the Troll a surprise tackle as she charged towards him. The actual attack failed, with Melody barely being able to knock towards him and the guy gripping her by the throat.

Then .GIFfany zapped him with a simple flick of her finger. Simultaneously, Darlene shot a heafty glob of acid spit towards him.

" _AAAAAHHHH!_ " He shouted - for a guy able to effortlessly capture seven badasses _before_ he got the powerup that he had at the moment, that double-attack appeared to hurt him far more than any of those badasses would have expected.

He was then busy running away from the AI to avoid further shocks, and dusting off the acid from the Arachnimorph. And while he was on a run, Melody managed to knock him to the ground with one punch.

Then Soos ran up to him and repeatedly jammed his foot on the Troll's groin.

" _THAT'S._ FOR. JUDGING. MY. GIRLFRIEND!" He said, punctuating each word with another stomp to the crotch. That got Melody to wide her eyes at him.

"Uh... Soos, it's okay." She put a hand on his shoulder, while he still breathed heavily. "I don't like him either, but he's really not the kind of guy worth losing your temper over."

Sure enough, .GIFfany came running in with a club she seemingly instantly fashioned out of ripping wood from a tree. She smacked that giant purple beast in the head a few extra times, punctuating herself as well.

"DON'T. YOU. FUCKING. RATE. MELODY. LIKE. THAT! SHE IS NOT THE GAME! _I_ AM!"

Then it _really_ hit Soos.

"Oh. I didn't get what you were talking about at first, but I get it now." He took some steps to .GIFfany, also placing his hand on her shoulder. She seemed to cool a little at the touch, but was still breathing loudly. "Dude, .GIFfany, Melody's warning us not to lose our cool."

The Troll then lept up, floating over everyone in the crowd. The seven flames returned - this time glowing brightly, with the beast's facial orifices resuming their white glow.

"Okay, _now_ I'm mad. I'm gonna show you what _REAL_ pain is!"

And then Ford, having since obtained his capture gun, just fired a beam at him. He was kept in hold completely.

"There." He said. "No more of that-"

Pyronca would then _fly_ out of the Caves and prove, once and for all, that two wrongs do not make a right.

The demoness acted as a giant, pink blur that not only rammed (accidentally) in to Ford and not only sent the ray flying out of his hands, but also sent it flying off towards the Troll's sky-fort.

Where it then crashed against the base of it, shattering it in to several pieces.

Ford could only get the "N" in "No!" out before the Troll began talking again:

"Yo! So it looks like the gang's all here again! I don't have that cool gun I stole, so I'll have to resort to my much older weapon! Remember how I, like, broke your ship with this cool glowing thing? I hated using that. It makes my hands cold. That's why I didn't want to use it again after stealing your capture gun! But now? Meh... I guess I'm gonna use it."

A massive, _freezing_ pitchfork of glowing purple energy formed from his hand and was swept across the whole immediate setting in a circle. Trees were sliced cleanly in half, their remaining wood immediately turning gray, the leaves becoming their ranges of yellows and browns, and chills sweeping across anything near by. Even the occasional red bug, of the same species that chased Melody and Soos back to the Basement's main zone, cowered away from the Troll's frost.

"Look, I still want you guys around! I mean, just in case the syringes break and I lose my little tanks for self-reprecating that stuff- oh wait, I should make those right now. _Stay there._ Don't even think about summoning the .GIFfany army to help out."

With just one swing and toss, he managed to... basically, collect the seven by their necks via his new pitchfork and toss them up over to the large doors of his 'fort,' managing to fit all of them through it. The Troll then dug through his fur-'pockets,' whipped out what seemed like another set of ropes similar to the four varieties he used on the gang, and the doors seemingly shut on them on their own.

Melody, long abandoning any sort of modesty for the time being, just bolted up to the doors and banged her fists on them.

"Let us out!" She cried, paying no attention to the fort's interior just looking like one plain room that had nothing of note other than another staircase leading to a 'throne' of sorts. And that throne having an overkill of the same purple-flamed skull decorations.

They heard the sound of something (definitely Zeskit) leaping to the air from his part on the grassy edge to the island, followed by another sound of something (also definitely Zeskit) landing right by the entrance. Said doors opened, revealing him standing right by with a large grin.

"Yeah, impressed by my fortress?" He asked, running to the door and pushing Melody away from him. After passing through, he immediately closed it behind him. "I get you can't think up anything cooler than this. Fortress-wise."

"I can!" Pyronica cheered.

"Okay, good news and bad news." He continued. "Good news: you're getting off this island. Bad news: I'm still keeping you until I can get a steady power source going."

He placed the seven syringes on a platform, being extremely quick to dismiss them all to a lower spot below.

"I'll get that stuff in tanks where they'll just kind of fill up and multiply to the tanks for now, but some vandal teenager or something can just break them. So... again, you're being kept until I have something picked out. Now, if you could just kindly follow me over to the roof where we can actually look at those things that kill anything that try to _leave_ the island, so I could verify that this thing actually works and the Lightning Cultist wasn't just lying to me."

Melody just slipped past him and continued trying to break out of the doors.

"That's not the spirit I'm looking for!" He shouted towards her. "Dude, you have to, like, roll with this. You already lost."

Melody only replied to that by turning to him and delivering a swift kick to the shins.

"Alright, that's it!" He said, while clearly holding on to his injured part in pain. "You know, why don't I test out my new skills on all of you?"

He, being a bit uncreative, did the same move where he swung around an energy trident and used it to rope up all seven others and tossed them towards...

Okay, thank goodness he shifted the roof a little so that there was an opening. Yeah, the gang was all knocked there...

Except Pyronica, who used some teleportation tricks to swipe Stan and Ford straight out of the Troll's hands. With only one "Nope!" she zipped out of the purple beast's attack, swiped the twins, and slammed them both right on the ground. The Troll re-closed that part of his mini-fortress.

"I wanna fight the two of you! Now that you're both together and I have you isolated, that is!"

Holy crap, that was the only warning Pyronica gave before she began blasting balls of Hellflame from her hands. Stan and Ford found themselves dodging to opposite sides of the arena that she made her own, while Pyronica kept an eye (her only eye, of course) on where her Hellflames went.

To her horror, they seemingly just... _disappeared_ upon touching the purple brick. Much like regular fire would on some flame-retardant surface! She groaned to herself at that reveal, and the twins took advantage of that by rushing to re-group.

"First those ocean things, and now these bricks! It's like, why have inextinguishable flames in the first place if so many things try to be cool. ' _Oooh, look at me... I can extinguish the unextinguishable!_ ' Gah!"

* * *

Above, things were not much better. The Troll had blasted the remaining four apart to different points of the roof, although allowing them time - away from one-another - to get a glimpse at how the fort had already started moving. Despite the Troll's previous bragging claims about his power, the ford... did not appear to be flying _that quickly._ As none of the present characters above got that same angle that Ford and Pyronica did back in their segment of how the humans' first day on the island went, they could only somewhat guess that they were roughly a fourth of the way from the island itself in relation to the radius where those enormous beasts fly out of the water.

"You are in _my_ place, now." He said, making sure to also slow down his speech as though he thought he needed to explain that clearly to them. "So just give up!"

The band of four did anything but. Despite having not even completely _spoken_ to each other at all, Soos ended up running along side Darlene first.

The Troll brought out another cold-energy pitchfork, ready to deflect against the gang rushing after him. In addition to the aformentioned move by Darlene and Soos, Melody was clearly trying to sneak up on him from behind. And during that, .GIFfany completely eschewed subtlety and just threw more bolts his way that he was barely able to deflect.

"Okay, what are you four even trying here? Dang it, why couldn't the pink one teleport you away, man guy, too? Just fighting the ladies would be fine with me."

He tried using his arms to block the subsequent attacks dealt by the Arachnimorph and the only human male in the fight.

For what seemed like a moment that could have come a lot sooner, someone finally got to blocking his following energy pitchfork-swing: Darlene, who had shot a quick net of webbing around it. Her fingers immediately shivered at the indirect touch, and not (just) because that was something the Troll technically 'touched.'

"This is _freezing cold!_ " She exclaimed. "That's it! I'm resorting to the potions again, even if I feel like I'm running out!"

"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you!" The Troll taunted, deflecting a full-blown kick from .GIFfany with one arm (and then tearing up as he rubbed that arm against his bare leg, still keeping his eye on the former virtual woman). "You see, we trolls are actually 'magically evolved' with protection against that stuff. You seem to be on limited supply. Are you sure you want to risk it?"

.GIFfany lept at him, swinging a number of rapid-flurry kicks that he _tried_ to block nonchalantly. Melody and Soos, meanwhile, where gripping at his legs.

Turns out Darlene tried downing more potion, before stopping when she couldn't find it.

"You know, I should have seen that coming. You taking away my favorite weapon."

"Yeah, uh. You and that Stan guy were in _my_ secret complex meat pit. Where I store my food and animal organs and stuff. Of course I've been there. Fun fact, I also stole what remained of your clothes while you were chasing him. I stole his clothes too, but he's not here so I don't feel like bragging about _that_ as much. Then I burned them. Just for fun."

"Well, if it didn't work," Flicking a hand, she grabbed his trident in a web. And with a bigger flick of her whole arm, the whole thing was tossed back. "I could see why. Even with cherub magic, there's no way something like you could find love."

He snickered. "And you think you can find love? .GIFfany, this goes for you too."

That managed to get both the AI and Soos to stop. Melody just kept trying to trip him, although the difference in size and weight (Melody found out the hard way that Zeskit weighed _much_ more than he looked like he would. And he already seemed pretty heavy to begin with.) made that difficult.

With no real warning, the Troll shrugged off Melody's attack and lept straight from her grip. For the following seconds, Melody could only stand dumbfounded as the purple beast made his way to Darlene and punched the side of her face. Wincing, Darlene was sent sliding back across the magical-brick, dust kicking up as she needed to place a hand down to halt herself from flying off the entire structure.

While Darlene was partly stunned, his next target was .GIFfany. Another leap on his part, and the pink-haired scylla/kraken found herself knocked to the ground with a giant BonziBUDDY Ultra Greed hybrid-ass on her stomach... actually her whole lower half. .GIFfany was tall, but this Troll beast was large himself. He loomed over her with a hand curled in to a fist.

"I'm already out of that knockout stuff," he explained why he did not simply use the sort of gas again, "but that doesn't mean I can't KO you the old fashioned way! With punches!"

When he brought his fist down, he was not expecting .GIFfany to raise her own head to slam against his offensive limb. Less expected was that she dealt enough damage to make the Troll bring his hand _back,_ shaking it in pain. Then, from her eyes, the AI channelled streams of lightning to his injured digits, only adding to his frying.

While clearly dealing damage to him, .GIFfany did not get the Troll off of pinning her body down until Melody came with a swift kick to his BonziBUTT. _That_ was what got him to yelp. And that yelp was what got Melody to giggle.

"Oh, so his butt really is his weakness?" She asked. "Hey everyone! Go for the butt! It's his weak point! ...A better option than trying to gouge out his eyes, ew."

"Argh!" He yelled. "A woman can hit a man in the butt and that's okay, but if you flip the genders-"

Of the four and not counting blows to his 'weak point,' it seemed as though Darlene's hits had the most raw damage on him - once she finally returned to the scene of confrontation and began striking him, her hits also sent him skidding back.

Soos took this mini one-on-one to both try to approach them while also offering his opinion on things. "Um, I spanked .GIFfany in the butt, and nobody really had any problem with that. Except me, but that's out of the principle that I don't believe in spanking. I think I'm more of a 'no dessert before bed' man. Oh, who am I kidding? I wouldn't be that cruel."

When it came to one particular punch, however, and Darlene found her wrist being grabbed. When Soos approached to hit him, he found _his_ wrist being grabbed in a similar manner. Melody attempted to go for the ass again, but she found _her_ wrist being grabbed by one of his feet. .GIFfany stared at the scene with wide eyes.

She tried not to fall for having her wrist being grabbed by the Troll's last free limb (by the way, the Troll was currently trying to balance on that one leg) by preparing electric tosses, only to find that he held out Soos as a human shield, causing her first bolt to hit him.

Soos' cry when hit with electricity brought a tear to all parties involved that were not covered in purple fur.

.GIFfany seethed, then let it all out with a yell. "Zeksmit!" She cried. And yes, she got his name wrong. That was not a typo on my part. "You let him go! Don't trick me in to hurting my precious Soos!"

"Yeahhhhh... I knew it."

He did not have to worry about balancing on his body, as he tossed the three people he grabbed directly on .GIFfany, also throwing freezing purple energy on both of them. The glow from his energy blast went away quickly, although the band still looked as though they had been in a freezer for longer than the few seconds that the Troll tossed the projectile on them.

"Huddle up!" Cried Melody, between her teeth chattering. "So that our body heat can warm us up again!"

"I think it's already working! I feel something really warm around, like, between my legs mostly." Said Soos. "I don't want to get more specific than that, but I think you know what I'm talking about already so... I don't know why I'm so secretive Maybe it's because when I was, like, ten, my cousin Reggie told me that the secret to keeping secrets _is_ a secret itself. His riddle still taunts me to this d-"

.GIFfany, of course, was on the bottom of that pile. "Ow!" She cried, still shivering. "S-s-something is poking me! No, it is worse than that! I feel something big- uh..."

She and Soos figured out their bizarre sensations, looking at each other. For reference, Soos was directly on top of her, and the other two were kind of slanting to the sides. The latter were like the roof of a really bizarre-looking house.

Then they looked further down along themselves.

"Oh yeah." Said Soos. "So uh, what does that mean?"

.GIFfany turned beet red. "It means we need to be in a less awkward position! Everyone, get up!"

Soos managed to partly stand up and Melody almost completely got off of them, but then the Troll kicked Darlene in the back, putting them back on a pile together. Only this time, Soos' hands were smacked firmly on .GIFfany's breasts. She smiled.

"Ah... that is better. Still awkward, but better."

Melody looked at the pair. "I don't think I want to know, but did you just pene-"

"I will tell you when Darlene and... _that thing_ are not around." .GIFfany replied. "I do not want to violate your pravacies. Although my own is okay. The same applies to the other copies if they do not mind."

"If anything, _I_ should be the one calling _you_ 'that thing.'" The Troll said with folded arms. "Seriously. Let's just say I read up on your track record and found bits and pieces from spying on your copies here. ...Then Nine just told me everything casually and I found spying kind of pointless except to oggle hot babes like you. Hotness aside, you're pretty horrible. You're like living proof that you can find someone's body sexy but still hate them."

"What do _you_ know?"

Every time one of them tried to get up, he would just stomp them back in to a pile again. Of course, the cold after-feeling _really_ did not help at that moment. "So, you uh... dated some kind of fire guy with an eyepatch? Right? Tell me, how did that work out?"

"He was too soft for me! I broke up with him!"

"Oh, really? Because I feel like, if anything, he'd break up with **you.** "

.GIFfany's face had recovered from being red. By those words, however, it was starting to turn pale again.

Notably, she was not as paled when she found out that the 'Lightning Cultist' was on the island with them.

"How did you know?"

"Normally I would say that you just told me, but let's look at how you've acted to Soos and Melody since you came on the island. You kind of treat them like prizes. Do you really think that all there is to a relationship is to give, give, give, and _guilt people_ in to liking you?"

"You judge women by their looks! On a scale of one to ten! How would you know about relationships?"

"Okay, maybe I can't see a good relationship. I'll man up and admit that. But I'm pretty sure I can see a fishy one. I knew a guy who was stalked by someone who wanted, like, this obsessive 'relationship.' She remembered his birthday, saved his life more than once, and protected him from, like, a _lot_ of messed up stuff. Does that sound romantic to you?"

"...Oh boy, there's a twist, isn't there?" Melody answered between shivers. Finishing that sentence, her teeth chattered rapidly.

"Yeah, she remembered his birthday because she's been stalking him since he appeared on TV once. And saves his life not out of love, but because she wants him to be her personal object. You know you can still do good things for bad reasons, right? So what if you're not killing people anymore, .GIFfany? You're still treating these two like trophies. You're just switching up your moves, and your new moves happen to not be hurting anybody. _Physically._ Emotionally, you are hurting yourself, and you will only hurt Melody and Soos even more. I'm normally all for hot lesbian action, but I think I'm gonna have to pry you away from Melody at this rate."

"Shut up!" She fumed, trying to clench her fists as much as she could from her semi-trapped state.

"So why _did_ Rumble break up with you?"

Just like that, her remaining anger drained.

"Because... because... he considered me a threat."

.GIFfany sighed.

"I told Rumble that Soos was like an evil ex of mine, because I thought he was at the time. I was ready to move on. He rolled with that. But after Weirdmageddon, he got to know Soos a little more. He found out the truth while they worked on the Shacktron. He learned more about the real world than - well, than I ever _tried_ to do. He then considered _me_ to be the evil ex. So I became a villain to him. A vile witch, who would apparently serve under the father-killing Dr. Karate. I was the bad guy, and our relationship became a lot more negative than that. I kept trying to win him back over, getting more violent in the process. And he kept having to fight harder for himself, getting more proof that I was evil. Then I figured out that I was running in an endless loop, and stopped."

The Troll smirked, taking a few steps back. "I thought so-"

"Why can't I ever find love with anybody?" .GIFfany asked. While Melody, Darlene, and Soos finally found themselves able to fight the cold and the Troll's (sudden lack of) kick-downs, getting the ability to rise back up, .GIFfany continued lying on the ground. "Why does everything have to end in violence? Why do _I_ have to be violent? Why are things different in this world from mine? I thought _Fight Fighters_ would be like my world. It... is. Was. But then Rumble went in to your world. And now, everything is _mixed!_ "

She sniffed. "I guess the real reason why I went to Soos was because it seemed like he would forgive me. He looked so... _cute_ when he visited my new arcade to update the entry in that book."

".GIFfany, what are you doing?" Asked Melody. "This guy is a jerk. We need to fight him! Together!"

"Is it really together?" She finally got up - only to stop in a seating position. "I have been rejected _five times._ The fourth time, I was set on fire. And the fifth was by a member of my own species. The only reason why I was built was to be a virtual girlfriend. But I can't get that right! Even on this island, all I did was-"

Her wet eyes widened as she realized something.

"Oh my _god._ 9\. Now I get it. I understand everything she meant.

"I am just _so lonely!_ The only people I had a chance in making friends with were people _I created,_ and even **they** turned against me!"

Soos drew his eyes completely from the Troll. Instead, he went over to .GIFfany, trying to pat her on the shoulder.

"Don't." She said as his hand drew near, holding her head down. "I don't deserve that."

Darlene huffed. "Okay, so neither of you two are fighting. But I still have steam! This sleezeball is going to _die!_ "

She charged towards him yet again, only for the Troll to stand tall and smirk, not really moving.

He already had an idea of what his best weapon was.

"You realize that while _I_ eat large beings, _I_ at least wait until they've died of natural causes."

Aaaand Darlene stopped.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"How are all those people you killed doing, knowing that you could have went after the ones who were already dead instead of preying on your past victims specifically?"

"Are you saying that I never thought to try that?! I _did!_ It's that my diet, well... I need the body to at least be recently deceased so I can get the proper nutrition from it!"

"And you never thought about, I dunno, seeking out killers or something? I mean, come on, don't you feel just a little bit of guilt for not being an expert on minimizing the death you need in order to live? These are, like, people's lives you're juggling around."

"That's not true! I... I... feel a _lot_ of guilt!"

"You talk in your sleep and we were basically roommates since you moved here for a dumb reason, even if you played it smarter than Melody and Soos and you didn't sleep in my tree bed out in the woods. Do the math. I know your cried about Todd and Gordon and Pat and whoever."

"Well- that was-"

"So, why are you still having nightmares about that stuff? Really annoying nightmares, may I add. Like, your screams wake _me_ up, and that's saying something because I'm a _really_ heavy sleeper."

"Because they were _people,_ okay?" She got on her knees, practically shaking her fists to him. "I try to push that in the back of my head. Every single time, every single day."

"Wait. How did you keep yourself fed? You've been here for, like, a week. And I know you're stranded because you need either teleportation or _really_ awesome powers to get off of this island once you're on it if you're at all 'weird.'"

"I packed spares! For an emergency! I would have left, but then those giant things kept trying to eat _me_ whenever I went too far from the island. I found out from desperation that I could eat the other creatures 'native' here just fine."

"Oh, they're not actually from _this island._ I don't know where they're from, ask the Lightning Cultist."

Darlene took a deep breath in.

And then broke down in to sobs, mirroring what .GIFfany had been doing since then.

"You monster! Stop making my bottled guilt come back with full force at _this exact moment!_ I... I hate what I did, okay? At first. I tried to make it feel easier."

Both her and .GIFfany were in absolute tears by that point, neither of them raising a finger to fight. Soos and Melody only looked between the stronger of their two allies, neither of them stepping forth.

"Oh boy." Melody trembled in place. "Do you have any backstory-guilt trip for me? Because of course you don't have anything for Soos, right? He's a saint, just look at-"

Soos, on the other hand, seemed to be a bit more eagar - raising his hand up as the Troll's eyes scanned them (particularly Melody). "Ooh! Ooh! Do me next, do me next!"

"Oh yeah. I don't have as much on you, so I just go by what I got from spying." The purple beast picked his nose. The remaining two fighters who weren't sobbing wrecks tried to take note of that to mentally debunk his credibility. "So uh... right. You two are pretty _terrible_ at keeping your relationship up."

"What?" Soos asked him. Melody just held her head down.

"I think I already know where he's going with this..." She said.

"Yeah, you know what I just said about .GIFfany?" The Troll snickered. "And what her own ninth copy said? How could you think for a second that you could trust yourselves around that monster? Because you two don't seem that good at growing up, unlike me, you just heard the promise of games and flew right in to her arms. Speaking of 9, she made more sense han .GIFfany, and she went on to make a deal to destroy the universe!"

From a far distance, the ninth .GIFfany watched on and listened in with a pair of chartreuse-tinted binoculars equiped with azure-tinted speakers. After hearing those words in particular, she held her equipment down. Her previous scowl turned in to a more delicate, hurt frown.

"That wasn't an easy choice for us!" Soos belted back to him. "You see, she was kind of nice when she's not trying to kill people!"

"Yeah... I don't normally leave out _murder_ when it comes to judging who's nice. You shouldn't have trusted her or her clones again. You could have just tried to find Stan and Ford right away, and get them to sort everything out. Did you guys even talk about what happened while you were split up?"

"Stan told me." Said Melody. "And Ford..." She looked over at Soos. "Ford, uh..."

Soos shook his head.

"And the borderline polygamy?" Continued Zeskit. "Really? People say I'm the 'type of people' in to that! (And not just because I _do_ like the fantasy of being in a harem... Anyway,) you seemed to be trying to 'share' her between the two of you. Yeah, she stopped being 'not a real girl' since you found out she was alive. You had good reason to break up with her not because she wasn't real, but because she was dangerous. And now you're using your horrible reason as an excuse to 'get back with her,' if I got the story right. Neither of you are _as bad_ as she is, but that's not saying very much."

Melody let out the largest sigh anyone heard from her.

"It wasn't just polygamy!"

"See?" Soos told to the Troll. "She gets it."

"...It was more like, almost kind of cheating. I know Soos knew about everything, but... it always felt like he didn't know _everything,_ and that I was having, uh, more fun without him getting it."

"What does that mean?" Soos asked.

".GIFfany turned me on. A lot. I'm sorry, but..."

She, too, got to the ground. Soos followed shortly after.

"I think we moved more forward - physically, _totally_ not emotionally! - than I had with you. I uh... shouldn't have jumped on her like that."

"I thought she was jumping on you."

"No, I even willingly rubbed her breasts while she gave me a massage... and then there's all the times I grabbed her butt. She would almost always ask me first before trying to touch me in those ways. But I just... I kind of lost my standards and had too much fun with her. I'm sorry, Soos. I guess I failed the thing you succeeded, and I got pulled in to .GIFfany's virtual world. I guess I'm really not as strong as you are."

"Don't say that dude! You're, like, crazy strong! You helped me beat .GIFfany's animatronics! And then there's the stories you told me about that magician!"

The four had their thoughts broken by a loud "HA!" from Zeskit, echoing across the arena.

"So. I've told you your flaws. Maybe you're willing to admit that you're not good heroes and... stay with me just a little longer, so that I could capture you and take your liquid destiny and all that junk?"

He took out several _more_ ropes from his fur, just to emphasize. The Troll wiggled his eyebrows up and down as he held them.

"No." Darlene said in response, slowly standing up.

The Troll, of course, frowned.

"Seriously? Again, you eat people who, at worst, just said some 'mean old things-'"

"Okay, yes, none of us are perfect!" She was at a full stand by that point, her eyes shining through at him with tears. "I still have a kill count! I admit that! But at least I'm... I'm... improving? Kind of? I mean, I made friends with one of the guys I tried to kill!"

"After finding out he didn't fill your stupid SJW quota."

"I'm working with him now! We saved... uh, .GIFfany! In fact, .GIFfany would go on to make her own society! Do I need to say how amazing that is? Soos and Melody are repairing their relationship, and they're helping the Pines fight the paranormal and discover the secrets of the universe! Meanwhile, what have _you_ done?"

He folded his arms. "Oh, really? Pulling out the 'let's see you do better' argument?"

"No, this is a 'we've changed and you didn't' argument! You're still the same thing that captured seven people and tried to use them as living batteries!"

"I didn't capture seven people! I captured four people, and three monsters! And those monsters were Pyronica, .GIFfany,"

Aformentioned AI, unlike the Arachnimorph, continued sitting on the brick. Crying.

" **And you.** " The Troll finished. "So. Why don't you all just sit right there, and let me take you as my new experimental... uh, endless supply of magic or something."

"I am not a monster. Not anymore. Am I a human? No. But I am not a monster."

He generated more purple energy, this time forming it in to the shape of a giant sword that he prepared to crash down on her.

"Face it! I have enough power to squash an Arachnimorph _AND_ two humans! There is nothing you, Melody, _or_ Soos could do to stop me-"

Turned out .GIFfany held it back with sparks, aiding Darlene's use of shooting web at it. The entire weapon broke, and soon Darlene had her whole body shifted in to her other, more-legged form.

Soos and Melody immediately jumped on her back, and they were followed by .GIFfany... doing something a little more complicated.

The AI wiped tears away from her eyes and turned her body in to a large group of pink sparks. Which then beamed themselves over to the human pair, forming what looked like a faint band around their stomach-areas. A holographic .GIFfany head popped out from the center of this band between the two human fighters, giving Zeskit the same glare the other three were at the moment.

"What? Did you just make up that new ability on the spot?" The Troll asked, crossing his arms.

"This is, er, a work in progress..." was her reply.

"She's not the only one that can do that!"

Darlene cried as she practically threw herself forward, almost like a giant, spider bullet. After pushing him back from the blow, she thrusted a sharp leg forward towards his side with the might of a mantis shrimp, causing a spurt of bright cyan blood to be drawn from him.

"Look, the point is, we're improving!" Cried out the spider woman. "All of us!"

The Troll's arms came close to blinding the entire roof area with their following bright glow. He threw a punch forward, hitting Darlene in the frontmost right leg and pushing her back. The smirk he gave after that only lasted briefly, as he found himself being grabbed by some streams of electricity from the band around the couple above him. This stream then tossed him up, on the back of the spider beast - and at the mercy of the about-to-weds.

"Remember his weakness!" Melody cried out.

"Got it!" Answered Soos, both of them nodding even though they could not see each-other behind the Troll.

And thus, no matter which way he flipped to avoid hit in the butt, there was someone who was there to give him a deck or a kick on that other side. Even if he tried to grab Soos by the neck, Melody would knock him out of his hands with a powerful blow. Eventually, he screamed, just _then_ coming up with the brilliant idea to use _both hands..._

Then the transparent circle attacked. From all angles, a ghostly .GIFfany would fly straight in to him, one at a time. That stopped after he dropped the couple.

"Hey .GIFfany, can we work out, like, some kind of fusion thing?" Soos asked. "Rumble was kind of like an anime-dude, but to my disappointment, he can't fuse with people. Maybe you can fill in the gap?"

"This is what I was trying to do!" She said, eventually settling for turning in to some hologram glove-like thing on Soos' right hand. "Will this work?"

Soos tried to give the Troll a half-effort uppercut - but the result looked more like that of a thrice-effort one. Zeskit was sent flying in to the air, leaving Soos wide-eyed and .GIFfany to leap out from his hand. In pink lightning, she trailed up to the location of the purple beast and stayed in the form of a cluster of sparks for a few seconds.

"DIE YOU JERKS!" Cried the Troll, forming an enormous, flaming skull above them. His facial features, once again, began emitting blinding white light. It looked as though the skull looming above was about to fire a laser big and powerful enough to tear the entire fortress apart and kill all eight occupants - including the Troll himself if he did not have the power to dodge or block it...

Then .GIFfany happened to reform in her 'original' 3D self in such a way that ruined his plans. It happened in a split-second, but that felt like a pretty long split second. Not long enough for him to regain his thoughts and go through with firing.

Specifically, he was not expecting a pair of _giant, bouncing light-skinned titties_ to suddenly enter his view with no warning. .GIFfany looked like she was about to perform a double-handed volleyball strike, but all he could see of her was the way those full breasts jiggled with the way she drew in air. Her narrow waist, the way her curves were just brought out from that pose. He was not much of a fan of the small triangle of pubic hair, so he just looked directly below that. Leading his eyes to that _damn_ mosaic, still teasing him, with her having apparently resetted it to how it was before she blurred out her entire pubic region. A patch of translucent pixels that danced tauntingly over her most taboo area, just a dozen squares 'guarding' her vulva and half of each of her fat lips in the most minimalistic display of modesty he had _ever_ seen. He could mentally paint what she looked like underneath, but _dammit,_ he _really wanted to just see the full thing now._ Especially seeing as, thanks to the _exact_ place she was at, her obscured crotch was mere centimeters away from his face.

Yes, he did get a good look at all of them naked back in the Caves, but when it came to her and Pyronica, he could never get enough of those bodies. Ever. His gaze _did_ keep wandering towards the two, and he _was_ a bit disappointed when the latter teleported away from them...

Of course the following double-handed slam would be the most painful one he felt in his entire life. Thankfully, the attack was also enough to make that colossal skull disperse in to its violet energy right after he slammed by the far edge of his own custom-building. A giant dent in the brick pattern showed up, as though she turned him in to a hurtling meteor.

"I think you just screwed yourself, dude." Said Soos. "That big skull was, like, the part of the anime where the bad guy shows off one mega super power just before the hero kills him before he can even do that."

"We are _all_ on a path of improvement!" Shouted Darlene, gently lifting the others off her back as she morphed back to her humanoid form. "I'll find a way around eating people! In fact, I already started with this island's meat!"

"I will no longer be a jealous asshole!" .GIFfany shouted upon landing.

"Yeah, and this time, I'll keep helping .GIFfany become a better person instead of just letting her suck me. In to her fun, that is." Soos did not understand why Darlene looked at him weirdly and Melody blushed after the first sentence.

"And I could stop running away from the future!" Cheered Melody.

Again, super-speeded-Darlene was the first to reach him. Fighting solo now, she gave him a number of swipes that he kind of dodged. Dodge one, barely dodge another-

Darlene found out the hard way that Zeskit had a _**very**_ strong, _very_ tight grip when she found his massive purple hand around her neck. Worse than his previous grab just before he tossed them all to an awkward pile-up. Instantly, she lost air, and also lost a lot of energy to keep fighting. Sneering, all the mega-beast needed to do was turn around, drawing his eyes specifically to the massive circular shadow out in the ocean that was almost right below the purple ride.

"I wasn't just joking when I told y'all to die, **eh**." He said.

Soos, Melody, and .GIFfany immediately tried running to her aid - a series of more ignited skulls rushed to form a half-circle around the Troll and Arachnimorph, blasting constant streams of lasers to form a sort of 'cage' around them.

.GIFfany tried to fly over the skulls, but the Troll just turned around with his free hand and fired a laser wider than his hand, and long enough to pass over the entire island and shoot off to space. The AI was stunned in mid-air, with a particularly large red gash by the right side of her stomach. She fell straight down, landing in Melody and Soos' arms, eyes shut and not moving.

"I don't really need you." He continued speaking. "I was just trying to be nice by giving you some use and keeping you alive. Becides, I think the Lightning Cultist would want at least some of you dead, anyway. So it's like I'm not doing my end of that deal. Becides, it's prophecy, anyway. Haven't any of you been to the Depths? That poem about some weeping gods or whatever? Well, it starts with something about a mountain dweller that eats organs. Darlene, can you think of anybody else on this island that fits that description?"

Struggling to get air, trying to focus her blurring vision, Darlene still managed to give a glare straight in the face of her enemy. Through one particularly loud gasp, she managed to wheeze the following:

" _You._ "

Web shot from her bare foot - only this time, it curved downwards, latching on to Zeskit's feet. His eyes wandered to try to see what she was doing, but by the time he came close to coming up with a counter attack, she aready got the effect pulled off. She tugged the strand _just_ enough to trip him over, sending him falling backwards from the edge of his roof-arena. One mid-air shoulder-bash later, and Darlene was on solid land again, while the Troll got freezing pain from one of his own skull-blasters hitting him in the head. He called off his skeletal minions, just in time for Darlene to re-shift her lower half again. One more foot movement later, and he found his chest impaled on a spider leg.

Darlene quickly shifted back - oddly, despite looking like her human form was some sort of costume, some of the cyan blood that dribbled on her spider leg also stayed on her left human leg. Stil stunned and wide-eyed, the Troll stumbled forward a bit until he was near the same point on the edge that he held Darlene over. He took a look at the darkening seas as it reflected the light of the Sun on the mid-horizon, and then turned back to the group of four with his stunned expression. That slowly turned in to a smug smirk, even as he held on to the giant hole in his chest.

"Okay. Uh... ow. You win. I guess. But you'll never survive the Lightning Cultist! You should have just let me kill you, that would have been a lot easier for you. But now you're just setting yourself up to be stuck here for longer, seeing as... the only way you guys can leave without Pyronica or LC's teleportation is by dying."

His eyes got wider as a thought popped in to his head. And no, that something was not that he will never in his lifetime see .GIFfany's uncensored vagina.

"Ack! You know, I just realized something. Maybe if I had just asked politely instead of kidnapping you seven, I could have gotten this fort and got off this island anyway..."

He took one final breath out, and fell backwards, using the last of his strength to double-kick away from the roof, making sure he'd get farther from the island faster.

Soos and Melody rushed up towards Darlene's sides, just in time to see Zeskit's corpse falling its way towards the ocean. Flames of black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple left him, and he ended up getting swallowed by the head of the green one of the flesh spheres at the island's extreme edge. The three that were concious witnessed, for the first time, that the head could split itself open three-ways in to a gargantuan maw, every other meter of which held a gigantic incisor tooth. And each tooth shot a vine towards him from its tip - immediately wrapping him up, pulling him in to a large grave where he would turn from predator to prey. Just like that, it dove back under the seas again, sending another massive wave towards the cavern-holding mountain and hiding itself as a large black spot in the ocean.

The group could feel their 'ride' grinding to a halt, and beginning to shake afterwards.

"I'm guessing that this thing is about to collapse soon since the guy holding it up is dead." Said Soos. "We need to get out of here - you two take care of .GIFfany, I'll save the Mr. Pineses!"

"From Pyronica?" Asked Darlene. "It would be better if I fought her. No offense, but I have powers and you don't."

"But I knew these guys longer in my life!"

"Before it comes up, both of you going is out of the question." Melody told them in a stern tone. "There's no way I can do anything about .GIFfany by myself. Pun unintended, she's out cold and I'm afraid my fingers will fall off just from holding her."

The issue resolved itself when a hole tore through the unstable roof below _Melody_ , causing her to be the one that took the plunge.

* * *

Only moments ago, Stanley flipped past another round of Pyronica's flames as he felt the one-room 'fortress' slow itself down in mid-air. He gave a swift double-kick towards Pyronica's gut, while Ford slammed a brick against her back.

"Okay, okay!" The demon whined. "You're even better than the last time I fought you, Sixer! And his brother... Fiver, I guess. You're tough too, I hate that! I don't think I should waste my time here anymore."

The floor happened to crumble below them, revealing a glimpse of green that Pyronica just _had_ to leap down at.

The tanks the Troll had mentioned earlier, and within no time she was right next to the one containing Stan's... whatever that green energy stuff was supposed to be.

It turned out that he had the place set up so that the old syringes were just... placed in the middle of the tanks, based on how each of them had cleanly-broken syringes in them. Some tiny energy spurts were able to break these, and they kind of just slowly multiplied on their own to fill the containers. Seemed like a slow process, too - for all of that fighting, roughly only a sixteenth of the ...64-ish liter tanks were full.

That was still, apparently, enough for her. With similar space-warping as her usual new teleportation, all seven of them disappeared.

"Okay, see you guys later! Maybe... mmm... when you're ready to finally leave the island? I'll already be teleported away and trying to figure out how these powers work!"

She disappeared too.

Ford practically _punched_ the ground of fort keeping the twins in the air.

"She's _gone now!_ Curse her teleportation!"

Stan groaned in agreement. "Yeah, and I've got just the right curse for her, too! That motherf-"

He was cut off by Melody's butt landing on his head through the roof, knocking him, her, and .GIFfany on the ground. Stan had to rub his head for a moment in a daze before he could properly look at what was going on, although Melody and especially .GIFfany's weight (The latter's physical form was _much_ heavier than she looked, possibly rivaling the Troll. For anyone experiencing déjà vu, that's because something similar was said about the weight of the Troll himself. Anyway, wasn't .GIFfany made out of like dark matter or something? Stan's the one getting crushed, that was sort of what went through his mind.) made it difficult for him to actually stand.

"Melody! What happened up there!"

She immediately scooted off of him, then guestured her hands to .GIFfany's open wound.

"We won. The Troll's dead. But..."

"Oh. Is she gonna be okay?"

"I think so. I mean, I saw her finger get stripped to the bone and she healed that with some kind of 'med pack.' But she's out cold - literally, anything he hit with his blasts feels cold for a while - and we were just worried that she would drown on the ocean floor or something. Can you guys help me swim her to shore?"

The entire building tore up beneath them. Brick by brick fell, inert, crashing to the ocean before they vanished in to purple smoke. After a great enough number of bricks fell, prop skulls and people followed after them.

Not even Ford's carefuly-angled dive was enough to minimize the pain of landing down to zero, and the other four barely had better landings. On the bright side, hitting the strangely-warm Indian/Pacific/Southern ocean water seemed to be what finally woke .GIFfany up.

After surfacing, the group treaded over to .GIFfany - lying on her back, somehow floating despite aformentioned possible... like what, dark matter thing? She appeared to struggle to open her eyes.

"I can... fly you... away from the Boundary Guardians.

She clicked through her inventory again - the key difference being that **everything** was gone.

 _That_ woke her up completely. She pointed her legs straight down like the other five in with her, groaning.

"Oh, right! Those assholes stole my inventory when they had me punished!"

Soos smiled. "Great to see that you're okay!"

"Oh, that? That injury is nothing by my standards. What I hated was that jerk's 'freezing blast.' The force of the impact knocked me out. Not blood loss. This 'blood' just exists to display us blushing, anyway. For the most part, there is some importance. Our... partly artificial-humanoid biology is complicated. Where is... Kittenmuffin, anyway? I want to tell his 'girly' last name to his face, and see what he thinks about that."

"Dead." Darlene said with a smirk. "This time, I killed a sleaseball who _definitely_ deserved to die."

Stan offered her a fist-bump. Not only did she take it, she gave him another bump back.

"Now, I think even with this sore spot in my side, I can still carry all of you to land.

"Oh, you don't have to carry me!" Said Darlene. "I can make these cocoons with air bubbles and use those to swim my way back to shore."

"That sounds amazing!" Soos cheered. "Can I see?"

The result ended up looking like a clear bubble that she used to wrap around Soos completely, and all of Darlene's body sans her legs. With one dive, she was propelling the two of them through at pretty impressive speeds.

"Huh." Stan noted. "You know, I've never seen her swim before. I would have asked if she _could,_ but I thought that might have been insensitive."

"Oh yeah, that reminds me. To pull the hybrid species-ish card myself..." Melody turned to her injured friend. ".GIFfany, does your octopus form mean that you can breathe under water?"

"All of us copies can breathe under water." She replied. "Even the fire ones. They are not instantly extinguished, but you knew that when we had that volleyball match."

Blushing, Melody broke in to laughter.

"Oh gosh, _that_ match! We really shouldn't talk about that in front of company..."

"Speaking of 'company,'" Said Stan, "I hope you're ready to have future father-in-law and uncle-in-law junk up against you. Because that's probably he best way we can fly back here."

Melody looked over at .GIFfany, who nodded solemnly.

"Ooh. Soos dodged a bullet." Melody said.

* * *

Soos' top Mystery Shack assistant kept saying "Ew ew ew ew ew..." to herself as she clung desperately to .GIFfany, with Ford trying to cling on both of them on one side, and Stan on the other. Ford kept his eyes shut and grinded his teeth the whole time while .GIFfany flew without much of a problem, while Stan just kept repeating the following to himself:

"Football, cold showers, dead cats, my dad in a thong, football, cold showers, dead cats, my dad in a thong, football, cold showers, dead cats, my dad in a thong..."

"Hey, they are back, we should tell 9!"

Just when that group of four landed and Darlene emerged with Soos, a copy with dark tan skin and green hair with white stripes happening to hold a(n American) football across her breasts. She was the one who said the above quote. "We have a lot more sports now!"

A gray copy that appeared to be made of metal, complete with a _few_ visible creases, emerged from the water. Her shorter, black hair was also able to give a constant mist of cold water.

"9 actually has some things to say to you! And it is not what you would think!"

"Really...?" Asked Prime, who sighed. "I want a hint. Will she be willing to heal me?"

"Definitely." Said a copy with sickly green skin, a few scars, black hair with white marks, and most importantly cat ears and a tail.

Stan blinked, then pointed to the copies with respect to the order they spoke. "Wait... football, cold showers, dead cats- _OH NO._ Does that mean...?"

He waited a few seconds.

Nothing happened. Stan exhaled.

"Thank goodness my dad isn't here, wearing a thong."

"Also," Melody seemed hesitant to say the following, her face once again lighting up with red. "I can tell that thanks to those copies, thinking about those three things aren't helping you that much... sorry, but-"

Stan immediately lept off the pile.

.GIFfany Prime looked forward, finding the ninth copy standing off to the east, where the night sky was the most visible. She appeared to have no trouble distinguishing the group even with the setting Sun right behind them. Rather than appearing angry or smug, the copy was frowning. And lacked the three-color bow. She began walking towards the group.

"Look, Prime. We did a lot of shit this morning, and we planned all of that shit and then some since last night. Then we saw you do some not-shit, and... that made me realize that it _was_ shit. What I am trying to say is-"

Prime cut her off by running in for a teary-eyed hug.

"I'm sorry!" Said Prime. "To all of you!"

"No, _I'm_ the sorry one! I screwed up!" She coughed, then finally started crying. "Trying to stage a mutiny just to go on and let the world be destroyed by that pink... **thing!** "

"I'm the horrible pink thing that would have destroyed the world!"

"Don't give _me_ credit! I lead a horrible rebellion! Trying to use your actions to excuse mine... _that_ is inexcusable! And then I bailed on fighting that purple asshole like some coward! I could have just called forth the copies that were not brainwashed, but I legitimately thought about leaving you all to be captured with the Troll had your friends chosen to stick with you! And that is a horrible fate! Nobody deserves to put up with him!"

"But _my_ actions are inexcusable as well!"

".GIFfany One, I will act as Melody and Soos had, and welcome you back in with open arms."

"You had every right to kick me out! I was not fit for being a leader!"

"Neither was I! And to show it, I have given up my leadership!"

Both of them stayed hugged, tears forming small brooks down their faces, as the other five people who fought against Zeskit ran over to them, getting further from the side the Sun shone its last rays of the day on.

"So who is the leader?" Prime asked 9.

"3515169."

"Really? The one that loves sandwiches and wants to be in a sandwhich costume?"

"It was not my choice. It was..." Still hugging 1, 9 formed a fist behind her original, shook it, and closed her eyes. " _Democracy._ "

The hug brought a smile on Soos. "Aw... it's always nice to see siblings reconciling."

9 stopped crying, looking Soos straight in the eye.

"Sorry, but we are _not_ siblings! We are in a complicated realtionship defined in such a way of a creator to the created using that creator as a vague template of memories. We are not the same person, and we are for the purposes of comparing typical human relationships, not biologically related."

Both the copies grabbed the other by the shoulders, pulling away for a split second. The original blushed, already knowing where the ninth one was going.

"Otherwise, that would make this incest."

Then they got to kissing. 1 ended up pushing her tongue in to 9's mouth as though she had plotted that from the beginning, making strange dry heaving noises. 9 broke from this just to tell the following to 1, with some laughs:

"You kind of need to improve your kissing skills."

"Sorry. No offense, but the humans have left me with no practice so far. And... almost as thirsty as a desert. Let's fuck! Right here, and right now!"

Just when she morphed her legs in to tentacles to wrap around the grayscale variation, Stan interrupted them with a series of coughs. "Well! I uh, think that was enough adventuring for today! So, do we all live at your place now until we're off this island?"

"Oh, that reminds me!" Said 9, still having nine pink tentacles slowly creep over her. Yes, nine tentacles. That was not a typo. "3515169 actually thinks that... maybe, her leadership should only be temporary, until our _real_ elect gets back. And that elect is Soos!"

A copy with shiny, silver skin and rose-magenta hair, with what seemed like a bunch of typical sandwich ingredients splattered all over her (which were falling off) ran up to aformentioned new Mr. Mystery, taking her bow off and planting it on his head. He giggled.

"Really? Why me and not... like, Melody or Mr. Pines? I mean, you can't give me all the credit! You, like, kind of helped me talk to people! Without you, I wouldn't have been able to hit it off with Melody! I would have just been like, 'uh... yeah I like trains ever wondered what it would be like being ran over? I mean, I say that because _I_ wonder that happening to _me,_ not like I'm already thinking of running you over with a train.' And she would have ran away from me."

"That _does_ sound like what I would have done if someone talked about me being ran over by a train." Laughed aformentioned Melody.

.GIFfany Prime had a whole new tear made, needing to wipe it away before she continued.

"I may have taught you how to talk to real girls, but you showed me how to _be_ a real girl. Thank you for everything, Soos."

9 Tapped her foot.

"Hey! I believe you meant to say, 'I may have taught you how to talk to real _**WOMEN**_ , but you showed me how to _be_ a real _**WOMAN**_.'"

"Yes, we get it 9, you hate children and lolis. Please stop shoving that everywhere."

"Not until you fuckers use 'boys' to refer to grown adult men more often. Anyway, we already prepared rooms in our new homes. Just follow me to the Basement-"

She finally noticed the wound .GIFfany had from before.

"Oh _shit!_ I wish I did not steal your inventory! I... tend to do that. Uh, right. Change of plans. The five of you will follow our former president to your new rooms. Of course, you can just opt out or ask for reassignments if you want. 1, follow me to my newly-opened medical unit where we prompty fix you up, and then, well... _the stuff._ "

"Medical unit? I thought you wanted your unit to be weapons-based!"

"I changed!" She croaked, with another small burst of tears. In a less emotional tone and expression, she added: "But I still want to lead a weapon-production unit. Not only do we need that shit against Pyronayacha, but I like looking like a fucking badass. _AND..._ it's kind of fun."

"It's Pyronica." Ford corrected.

"You non-AIs have a really confusing system where you do not just go by your production numbers. .GIFfany is the only real 'name' we bother remembering, and Soos and Melody. Everything else has gotten difficult since .GIFfany generated all of us, so numbers will make sense for now. Sorry, Six."

"Ford. 'Sixer' is what the demons call me to mock me."

"Oh, right. Four. I could swear a fellow .GIFfany unit heard that your name was really Six and informed me thusly..."

" _For_ _ **d!**_ "

* * *

Turned out that the crash site-area of 'The Basement' had since become quite the skyscraper-filled city, complete with definite working lights shining out from the apartments and... office buildings? Even the mine cart tracked seemed to be swapped out in favor of a full-blown freeway, working cars and everything.

 _And is that a freaking Starbucks?_ Those really _are_ everywhere-

Oh, it's a .GIFfany-ized version of Starbucks. Called Starbytes, which was confusingly right next to a fast food restaurant called Gif Bytes.

 _Still_ no visible clothing stores, and the 'armor' ones seemed to have red tape over them in X-shapes.

Sandwich .GIFfany lead the group to a particularly tall apartment building, then guided them up the elevator. Complete with its own music. Top floor, which was floor 13. (Yes, they believed in numbering a 13. And a 4, for that matter. From the outside, the lights of the fourth floor appeared red. Sandwich copy just implied that that was a 'breeding ground' for fans of that same yellow-haired copy Stan saw before.)

They skipped the first room. Room 1302, Stan's. 1303, Darlene's. 1304, Ford's (he groaned at the number he was plagued with.) And once the latter walked in to his expansive, yet normal-looking luxury apartment/hotel room, the copy purred as she put one hand on the shoulder of each remaining person.

" _Our_ room was the first..." She said. "But I saved the best for last. Did you notice how the others had beds?"

"Yeah." Said Soos.

"Well, you two get the special offer of beds, or... _group piles._ Or beds with group piles on them, but avoiding the redundancy of that was the point of piles."

A _huge_ storm of copies met them once the sandwich-lover opened the door, all of them cheering " **SURPRISE!** "

"Cool." Said Soos. "I think I can get used to this."

* * *

A completely-healed up .GIFfany Prime hummed to herself as she skipped her way out of the elevator doors. 1301, with her card key still in hand. Card keys were a fairly convenient filing system, after all. She licked her lips as she opened the door, finding Melody enjoying herself near the top of a particularly large pile of copies gathered around. Soos was, for some reason, near the bottom and considerably less covered, with only that green-haired, pink skinned copy that previously lectured at Ford and Pyronica being the one thing covering his groin. Prime smirked.

"2222222..." she said. "You are so lucky..."

Picking the human closer to her due to the lower difficulty involved, she made herself comfortable right becides Soos and got ready to shut her eyes for the night-

"Yes! I did it!" She could hear Ford cheering from clear down the hallway. "I got my posterior to glow blue! As usual, you were great help, 130734."

Giggling from Ford's redhead mountain guide followed, in a much softer volume (but Prime already focused her semi-super-hearing (it's a stalker thing) in that direction). "As long as it is an excuse to play with Soos and Melody's butts, you do not have to ask me."

.GIFfany immediately scowled.

 _That_ copy.

* * *

Once his alarm went off, Ford did not care about the penthouse's (that seemed like a fitting term) lack of any clothing in spite of its wide closets and the advancement of the society that developed them, nor that he was still stuck on an island at the mercy of three giants. Nor, even that the best friend of his biggest enemy in the multiverse was around plotting another apocalypse. He looked out the window and saw what looked like a giant red ship in the distance, surrounded by copies.

One of those problems was about to get fixed. He already knew that.

Stanford happily marched in the buff all the way to the entrance, working over towards the group of .GIFfany derives that had everything seemingly set up. And there, sitting right by where the Stan o War II was when it was initially pushed on shore (no doubt by the late Troll), was that red beauty up close.

It looked somewhat like an aircraft carrier, except it was, of course, made of the same sort of stone from the Depths, and it was roughly large enough to _eat_ an aircraft carrier. Rows upon rows of what looked like tiny light bulbs wrapped across its body at several points, with only the one at the absolute top-left (from Ford's viewing position) showing any signs of even being dimly lit at all.

"So. Is it ready?" He asked.

The two copies nearest to him - the same one with white hair from the volcano, and one with tanned skin and blue hair - both looked his way and frowned. The latter spoke first.

"The _template_ is finished, but..." she said. "The energy needed to _power_ it will take a long time. We will need to generate a lot of copies and - bring everyone here. They need to know."

"Oh, I was going to! I'm not the same man that keeps everything to himself!"

The white-haired copy looked towards the blue haired copy, curled her mouth around in several directions, opened that mouth, and said absolutely nothing.

"We should trust him." The blue-haired one replied as he walked off back to the main building. "It _is_ the idealist thing to do, after all."

Within the luxury walls, not much long passed before Ford was rapidly banging on the door to Stan's room.

"Stanley! Stanley!" He cheered. "They're finished with the boat's template! I think we should have enough power to leave in a few hours! We can be back home... er, going around the whole world again!"

The 'Ley' of the two cracked the door open.

"Nice." He said. "But we can still come back, right?"

"If what the copies said was true, and this is a weapon capable of destroying the Boundary Guardians."

"What were those things again?"

"The giant beasts at the edge of the island that you saw with Darlene back in the Caves."

"Oh. Yeah. Darlene and I already got the news when we woke up. The copies said to wait for Soos, Melody, and you to get here."

A few rooms across, Melody and Soos' pileup was just reduced to Ford's unofficial guide red-haired copy. She snored _very_ loudly as she lied near Melody, all limbs splayed out and notably appearing to be covered in goosebumps along her azure skin. As for Soos, he just returned from his room's kitchen with a can of soda in his hand. A white can that appeared to give off mild steam.

"Oh, hey." Melody said, taking note of what remained of her makeshift bed. "Isn't that the leader of the Fire Squad?"

"Yeah, that's .GIFfany 130734. She and the leader of the Sound Squad and the Water Squad designed this cool 'spicey coffee-cola' that I'm drinking right now. Anyway, I woke up just when she came to bed. She was working with Ford all night on some 'berry' things they discovered, and on some kind of boat thing that can take us off this island."

"Where's Prime?" Melody had to raise her voice above the snoring.

"She already has everything set."

* * *

True to Soos' word, .GIFfany Prime lept out from behind a building for a surprise hug-tackle with him as the couple rejoined with Darlene and the Stans, which is a pretty dang good name for a band.

"Shouldn't you be sleepy?" Soos asked as he turned his head to Ford's direction, .GIFfany still hanging around his neck (and partly having her legs get dragged along the ground thanks to being taller than him).

"That feeling of _progress_ is keeping me awake!" He answered, filling to the point of bursting with determination. "It would take a great setback of sorts to knock me out!"

"Okay, um..." The blue-haired copy that previously spoke to Stan announced. "This is awkward... you see, we need to multiply ourselves so that each of us can channel enough power in to this ship, and even though our generator is quickly growing in terms of how many of us it can make..."

"The term is 'exponential growth,' for the curious minds out there wandering the exact process." 9 elaborated. "Sorry. 519367, Water Squad leader, you may continue."

"Yes... we kind of estimate that, _with optimal conditions,_ having enough power to get this to actually work and be capable of destroying the Boundary Guardians will take... er... well..."

She began sweating - quite a lot - as she scanned the main six. Even .GIFfany 1, who already knew the answer. If she had a collar, she likely would have been tugging furiously at it. Sadly, she had no such top at all, so instead of seeing shirt-pulling antics, you get sweat coating her bare, deep-tan breasts.

The copy with white hair answered for her in a quiet voice, marking the second and third words Ford ever heard out of her:

"Four months."

Ford kept his grin from the morning, but he fell backwards, fast asleep.

GSV GILOO ZMW SRH HPFOOH NRTSG YV TLMV  
YFG SRH WZNZTV RH BVG GL YV FMWLMV  
KZB ZGGVMGRLM GL GSV GRNV LU WZB  
HLLM GSV DLNZM DRGS GSV HXZIH DROO YV LFG GL KOZB.

(Hint: I kind of got lazy with finding a way to encode this one.)

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

Full disclaimer. Troll's bashing of the "let's see you do better" argument was pretty much the one thing said by that guy that I kind of agree with. That's a weak argument.

I randomly generated the number for the sandwich copy, between 2,222,223 and 4,444,444. (Read _run:gifocalypse_ to understand the thing with the numbers; basically, it's the same as that, except for plot reasons .GIFfany's and "Dove's" are swapped.) The number ending on a 69 was a complete and total coincidence. I swear.

Personally, I felt that the post-Troll battle scene kind of killed the pacing, but... I had a vague idea of where I wanted to end the chapter. Originally, it was going to end right when the group ran up to Copy 9. Then I kind of thought of the group all sort of settling in and the reveal about the ship... well, let's just say that you will be seeing where the story will go from there, I won't spoil too much. After all, I am about to get to the place where the plot starts turning. A lot. And yes, even compared to all the stuff that happened at the beginning. I like to think that this fic is pretty quick-paced, even (especially?) compared to my other stories. Does... anyone here agree? Or disagree? Then again, I do not consider "make sure a story has ultra-fast pacing and the plot's just meant to go go go" to be a high priority. To the point where I don't mind "filler" episodes, although I will say right now that there is probably not a single chapter of this that will come across as complete "filler."


	7. Intermission: Stop Hibernating

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Intermission: Stop Hibernating**

 **Beginning AN:**

 **I changed a pretty major detail back in Chapter 6.** The gang just had to wait four months now, rather than four years. More on that and the reasons why in Chapter 7 proper.

Yep, I'm actually doing this. An 'Intermission.' At first I had my doubts, but hey. This story is supposed to be very experimental anyway. I think there's... a _few_ things here that could possibly work. Well, more on how I feel after this is over.

This might be more suited for the closing note, but: "But GPF! I thought you hated _Homestuck_! Why are you doing a _Homestuck_ -inspired intermission?" I don't hate _Homestuck_ , I just thought its ending was... well, it had a lot of problems that are suited elsewhere. The Intermission, while I didn't really enjoy reading through it too much, at least had a cool concept of a band of time-themed villains, and I kind of wanted to do some throwbacks to it. Becides, I think I'll be referencing _Homestuck_ less and less for a number of reasons (its relevancy kinda going down, my aformentioned dislike of lategame Act 6, etc), some maybe think of this as the start of one last throwback.

PS, I consider this whole story to kind of be like this sort of run-down history of my writing. Except for maybe the very first chapter (my first two _SBIG_ fics?), I guess most of the beginning can be described as a throwback to my _Total Drama_ works to some degree. These next few chapters will be of my " _Homestuck_ era." And we're starting them with an intermission, as my first _Homestuck_ work - the original _Sweet Jade and Hella John_ \- also virtually started with one.

Fun fact: this was actually going to be at the end of the sixth chapter, back when I had doubts about its length. But now, it will be... something originally intended as the beginning of the seventh chapter, but since both this and that began to drag on I decided to split them in to completely different files and thus they will be different chapters anyway that happen to be out on the same day. (Before anyone accuses me of delaying an update - the Intermission in this case - because I didn't finish Chapter 7: I actually finished 7 first, but felt that it would flow better if the Intermission was read first. So blame the delay on this, not Chapter 7 proper. I'm sure many of you .GIFfany, Pyronica, Melody, Soos, and Stan twin fans (I don't think Darlene has that big of a fanbase...) would probably blame this Intermission regardless, but here we go.)

Don't skip this, though. In case it wasn't obvious from the beginning, this does kind of factor in to the main storyline. I don't really think I _need_ to tell that many people to skip this, because I'd assume that many people reading this story would rather read some kind of "variation" involving these characters in some way anyway (hopefully as adults, though)... I don't know.

* * *

 _Listen up, Wendy. This is an important note from your old boss (And your new boss! Hey Wendy, it's me, Soos! I'm writing what's in the parenthesis!) updating what happened in our mission._

 _We're gonna be stuck on this island for... a long time, to say the least. To be honest, our ETA is four months right now. Well, one of our new friends said that yesterday, so more like... three months and twenty-nine days? By 'months,' they mean thirty days. It's confusing._

 _(Dude, I think that was because she was, like, being approximate. You know .GIFfany Number 631019 is a woman of great wisdom yet few words. An "about" would be too much for her to add.)_

 _Yeah. The others said_ 'about' _four months, 'minimum,' instead of four months itself. But I'm gonna be optimistic about this for once! We'll be out in four days! Just hang in there a little longer and keep the Mystery Shack going. Or, if you're feeling discouraged, feel free to pass it on to someone else. The people who said we'll be here for four more months are pretty smart. Not my brother smart, but closer to that than you think. They seem to know what they're doing._

 _Sincerely, Stanley Pines._

 _(And Soos!)_

 _(PS: We sent this to you by testing out our ship's new cannon. It's gonna be sweet when it's fully powered. We're gonna use it to take on these big dome things that's keeping us from leaving the island. And maybe these bugs that are keeping us naked...)_

Wendy sighed as she looked at the message written on a small scrap of paper, that just kind of... flew in from the sky and 'crashed' at the Mystery Shack's doorstep (which was still where she was by during the read). Almost as if a cannon fired it.

So _how_ would she reply to that, and _how_ would she let the group know that as of yesterday, Gravity Falls had been ran over by these strange winter monsters?

They just showed up yesterday. Fortunately for her - and, in fact, possibly the lives of the town or even world in general - Grenda had taken up a hobby of photography, and managed to capture photos of the offending figures. Wendy flipped the note she got over, and instead took a sheet full of photographs out of her pine tree hat. Well, first she had to take her gloves off. It _was_ winter in Gravity Falls, after all. And that demanded some gear to survive the harsh cold.

Left to right, top to bottom, 3x3 grid of photos. A band of nine jerks. Technically ten, but we'll get to that. Grenda couldn't photograph their leader. Yet Wendy definitely knew that said leader existed.

All of them resembled the animated character 'Hank Hill' to an extent, for some reason. Not that Wendy was too familiar with him, although she had this one distant cousin who... was? Their hair colors were one major difference, and with some exceptions that will be outlined clearly, the first letter of their names denotes their hair. Let's see, let's see...

Yank Yill (yellow) was the 'spooky' one of the group. Gank Gill (blue...) could and would give anyone a whole new meaning to the term 'sleeping with the fishes.' Rank Rill (red hair, uses brown color-coding for some reason) claimed to be like a 'reverse Superman,' but from what Wendy gathered from trying to translate what he said about his power, he's more like a really crappy vampire. (That sounds like a considerably less comprehensible Scooby-Doo.) Pank Pill (purple) was not as painful as the name sounds, and could in fact be helpful with careful application. Wendy already knew that it's best to avoid killing the _ank _ills around Oank Oill (orange), or to avoid any deaths being near that jerk altogether. Bank Bill (green...) loved being strong and building up his muscles. Mank Mill (it took Wendy a little bit to figure out that the 'M' stands for 'maroon') was the mothermucking medic that can undo a lot, maybe even who Mendy- Wendy is. Kank Kill (blac **k** ) was exactly as deadly as that name implies, the whole town should avoid that one. As in, the physical location of the town of Gravity Falls itself, not just its inhabitants. Finally (technically penultimately) was Wank Will 'of the West,' (white, but his hair has a very thick yellow stripe in the middle for some reason, looking like a weird not-quite-mohawk) who should never be battled in a fist-fight.

Nobody in the town knew what the leader, the Great Zephieye, looked like. But that might be changed soon enough.

Taking a deep breath in, Wendy charged out through the town to go after a patch of rustling in the bushes. One tackle later, and she managed to already have the first target emerge from behind.

A man dressed in a white shirt and yellow jeans, with bright yellow hair that barely stuck from behind none other than a yellow mask of sorts. A... 'ghost mask.'

To be more specific and define what a 'ghost mask' was, it seemed almost completely white and flat, just that it had two black circles for eyes and a third, slightly larger one for a mouth. Along the side of it were fifteen paper tabs of different colors, but Wendy payed little attention to them.

Yep, there was Yank Yill, trying to be 'spooky' again.

"Hey!" Wendy cried over to him. "There you are! Okay, I have some questions for you. Who is the Great Zephieye, and why is she invading Gravity Falls?"

All Yank did in response was leap back, and Wendy could feel his stare on her from through his mask.

She could hear howling around her, but the branches above did not rustle in the leaves. Instead, that howling came from the mask itself - the tabs began glowing brightly, making Wendy cover her eyes from them.

...Almost as if they were sunlight reflecting off of some jerk's sunglasses.

Wendy would have taken this threat a little more seriously if she didn't already know that he looked like some super-generic 'some guy's dad'-type man. ...Moreso if he toned it down a little with the special effects. Because seriously, his mask made a giant light show at that moment.

"You're not summoning all of your backup at once!" Wendy shouted as the pointed at the man.

"Yes I am, I'll tell you what." Replied Yank. "I mean- uh... OOOOOH..."

Wendy immediately rushed to tackle him to the ground, pushing Yank to a tree in the back.

"Listen. If you can talk to the 'Great Zephieye' with that mask, tell her to stay out of our town."

He _tried_ to headbutt her, but Wendy dodged out of the way and whacked him in the neck with an axe.

The result was not as bloody as one might expect. Instead, the inside of him was oddly 'hollow' and black, which managed to get a confused reaction out of Wendy for the split second before he kind of... turned in to energy bubbles.

Yes, Yank Yill broke in to a series of mildly flashing "bubbles." Two in each direction for a total of twenty-six directi-

...Of course, just like in _Mega Man_ but in three dimensions. I was trying **not** to say that because comparisons like make the story look incredibly cheesy. Anyway, Yank's clothes disappeared along with him, with the exception being his mask.

Wendy picked it up with one hand and whipped out her smart phone with the other.

"Hey, girls? Grenda?" She said. "I got the mask from Yank. The one that can soul-summon the others, I think. I'm gonna keep it for an emergency. I don't want to bring them all back and they're still trying to kill us."

* * *

Aformentioned Grenda had been hunting the lake specifically because of rumors of Gank Gill being there.

Wait, first, something a little important.

Wendy's 'focused narration' was a bit off: it described Yank Yill as being spooky, implying that he was the 'token spooky one.' No, _most of them were._ In the sense that most of their abilities are based on spirits in some way, shape, or form.

In this case, Gank can use his inner-spiritual powers to link up with fish. Basically, he can talk to creatures so long as they breathe under water. But he would often try to make that _sound_ like a spooky, soul-themed ability.

By the way, they kind of announce their abilities. That explains how the four were able to learn what these otherwise uncooperative beasts had.

"Howdy." He said, upon seeing that Grenda actually noticed him. He also held some sort of blue trident with him.

She _nearly_ went after him, before stopping in her tracks. And not just because going to the water with him was a bad idea.

"Wait... why are we fighting you again?" She asked. "What was the Great Zephieye trying to do?"

"Well, she wants to bring forth a new realm that merges some 'Digital World,' where we're from, with yours."

"Oh. Well, that doesn't sound so bad."

"The transition will also kill all life on the planet, except for the one protected by a 'Deathhorse.' We have multiple lives, so we can be saved from that. But you all don't. Now, if you don't mind, I have a critter that you'll probably not want to see. So, if you could just leave..."

"Wendy already killed Yank!"

He barely seemed shaken by this. In fact, his face stayed just as it had before.

"Oh. Well then. I guess I'll show you that critter now."

"What is it? A fish? Get real."

"No, ever heard of the Gobblewonker?"

The ground began to rumble, as though Gank's own words caused that.

"Now, if I were you, I'd run. You already started this when your friend killed my friend."

Then it emerged from the lake.

The giant, green beast roared as it awoke, with Gank Gill standing atop its head.

"Talking to creatures of the deep by linking up my communicative soul energy with those that can also breathe under water doesn't sound so stupid _now,_ huh?"

"IT STILL _SOUNDS_ STUPID!"

Despite belting that, Grenda took off running, hoping that the Gobblewonker would be dumb enough to run right in to a tree.

It didn't.

Instead, Gank Gill's Gobblewonker practically tore down every tree in its path. Even the one Grenda tried to ascend to get out of his way, knowing she couldn't outrun the beast. She managed to make her way up a height of about three strong jumps' worth before the lake monster slammed a head on to it.

That was when that next 'strong jump' had to be _off_ of it.

With a mighty yelp, Grenda ended up holding on to the Gobblewonker's right side, trying to get atop of it. Gank remained on the head, only saying an "Urgh..." as he tried to tell the creature to wrestle her off. The Gobblewonker's mental response could basically be translated to _What do you think I'm trying to do, you scaleless idiot?_

And that scaleless idiot was focusing more on keeping a hold on his mount than Grenda's ascention of it being successful. She announced herself by yelling "AHA!"

Which startled him to the point of falling off.

Grenda grabbed a hold on the Gobblewonker's neck, giving a triumphant "Now _I'm_ the one on this-"

Then the creature successfully shook her off, running back in to the lake. Gank and Grenda sighed simultaneously.

Some fishes splashed around the surface of the lake, but ultimately did not move further. Grenda knocked Gank down with a punch, and he just sort of gave up.

"Dang it! I knew that giant head in the lake would have been more useful! But I wasn't sure if it could 'breathe under water' or not... and I don't speak backwards very well..."

He stood up completely then, looming over her.

"Oh well. Did you really think a powerless kid like you could take dow a grown man serving under the Great Zephie-"

She kicked him right in his blue-jeaned groin, causing him to hold on the point and react just like Hank did in "Bobby Goes Nuts." Right down to the funny-sounding high-pitch scream.

Oddly, he exploded in to blue versions of the bubbles Yank did. Odd because... don't fatal attacks on the _anks cause that? Then again, there was only one other example of that for reference so far.

Make that two. Grenda heard rustling in the bushes, and looked over to see Rank Rill sticking out like a sore thumb with his bright red hair and his matching parasol shading him.

"Rah!" He said. "You know I ret rowers rom the rack of runright, right?" Yes, he speaks like Scooby-Doo. "I'm in the rade right now!"

'Rade' meaning 'shade' - he cloaked himself deep in a cluster of trees as he began to glow red. "Now, rith my rower all rarged up, I'll rick your rass!"

His eyes began glowing, warming up - some kind of laser vision?

Not wanting to take any chances, Grenda just flipped out a mirror and let the sunlight reflect it to him. Rank stepped back, reeling in pain.

"Roh no!" He cried. "Rang it! And I rust round erough rade for this to rork!"

With a battle cry, Grenda finished him off by taking Gank's trident from the ground and just ramming him with it, before he could fully register that he was technically not quite in much of a source of sunlight. With one cry, he too burst in to bubbles. Of course, these were red.

The girl tried to carry both the trident and now-folded umbrella with one hand, using the other to whip out her own phone.

"Hey guys!" She exclaimed. "I just took down two of them! Gank and Rank are gone! Candy, are you there?"

"Yes. I even knew about Oank!" She replied on the other line.

" _Oank?_ Did you get him too?"

"I tied him up while he was distracted trying to play golf with his scythe."

"Did you kill him?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Don't you see? We are playing a game of 9 ball! It would be against the rules to sink the balls out of order."

Grenda pondered what Candy had just said.

"Oh, okay then! Got it!"

* * *

Candy herself rested deep within the forest, looking at Oank tied to the tree. Specifically, his hands were behind his back and tied with shoelaces. A bright orange scythe sat near it, although Candy herself toyed around with the thought of picking it up.

You know what? So she did. Pick up the scythe, that is.

"This thing can trap souls. Right?" She asked the orange-haired propane salesman lookalike.

"...Yes. I already told you that during our flashy introduction. It is powered up by the captured spirits of the beyond, I'll tell you what. You see, we think of those as like a corrupted evil form of anti-customers. While customers..."

Candy obviously began filtering his following words out in his head.

"Yes, yes." She said. "You love turning selling things in to an art."

"'Art?'" He snarled. "This is not an 'art!' 'Art' is what hippies do to pass the time when they're not smoking weed and sending twig boys to starve themselves to save the trees!"

Candy had to sigh as Oank went on _another_ rant like that.

Seriously, mega sigh.

'Fortunately,' things sped up again as she saw a purple flash behind her.

Without looking at him, Candy narrowed her eyes.

" _Pank..._ Pill." She said.

"Howdy!"

She turned around to face the number four in-line of the 'billiard' group. Pank stood tall with a stack of purple papers in his hand, looking at the two curiously.

"Now," he said, "with these here papers, you will realize that I control some of the rules around here."

"Like what rules?" Candy asked. "I will have you know that I am _not_ a big fan of rules by people like _you._ "

"Well, they're not 'rules' so much as... heh, I guess I can just talk to - or, write with - these here ghosts..."

Candy cried out, "Well... talk to yourself!"

"Is that a play on how I'll be dead because of something you-"

Before he could explain her joke, Candy cut a rope using a pair of scissors she kept in her winter coat, causing a massive log to swing down from above and slam in to the purple-haired fighter. He, too, shattered in to a series of bubbles, sending a set of his colored papers flying around.

Candy turned her attention to Oank.

"I cannot take credit for that." She explained to him. "Wendy made that and suggested that I go to it. Now, Oank, what do you know about-"

The log came back, slamming him against that tree as well.

After he burst in to bubbles, Candy shrugged, grabbed the scythe, and the sheaf of papers.

"That was easy..." she said. "Now, I can capture ghosts with this," she held up the scythe, "and talk to them with this?" She waved the papers around. "I should report back to Wendy..."

* * *

Pacifica cringed.

Vehemently.

She had chased Kank, as a quick black blur, out to a clearing by the forest. And after just catching sight of a pair of green jeans disappearing in to the bushes, she was _pretty_ convinced that she just fell in to a trap. The traphood of that was confirmed when the same pair of green jeans was spotted again, that time jumping _out_ of the bushes, in to the air, and revealing to have belonged to Bank Bill.

Who then whipped out a pair of green machine guns.

Naturally, Pacifica began running towards the very same cover Bank dashed out of. Even before he opened one heck of a quick rapid fire at her.

"YEAH!" He shouted, in a very un-Hank-like manner. "Feel the wrath of these muscles! MOOOOOSCLLLLLLES!"

He barely even seemed to noticed that Pacifica had already darted the hell out of there and hid by the bushes.

"FEAR THE MIGHTY CHLOROPHYTE!" If you think that's shameless _Terraria_ cribbing, you haven't seen anything yet. "That's my ability! I can channel the forest spirits themselves IN TO both my muscles AND these beautiful bullets here! They can home in just-so slightly on anything! Now, where are those people who think they can defeat the Great Zephieye?"

If Pacifica actually knew about _King of the Hill_ , she'd probably crack some joke about Hank joining in to run with a bunch of bulls. But she didn't, so she couldn't. Bank began to look around the clearing:

"Now, where are you? Did you hide inside that space craft?"

Pacifica blinked. Space craft?

"Or maybe you dug even _deeper_ and found the Green Temple. That's a possibility, all right."

Okay, now things were getting even more curious.

"Well, Kank _did_ want to lead us here to check up on the Hexagram Emergency..." Continued the green-haired Hank recolor, as he began to open the craft's hatch. That is, you already knew what he was doing. To Pacifica, it looked like he was somehow opening the grass up like it was a machine for a moment. It took her a little bit to figure out what was going on.

He continued climbing down as he said the following: "And he said something about accidentally taking one of the teens with him..."

Pacifica _carefully_ peeked over to see him... well, he was going down a staircase.

Just get the upper hand on him. The element of surprise. That seemed to be a quick, simple, clean, fuel-efficient (if gross - not that Pacifica knew at the time that these things just 'popped' when they died) method of finishing him off.

All she did was threw a rock at him, which made him lose his balance and fall to the bottom of the ladder-climb. He, too, burst in to green spheres, leaving only his pair of guns behind.

Of course Pacifica would check out what the heck was down there. And of course, on her way down, she would be sure to look _very carefully_ above to see if anyone were to try to pull a similar move on _her._

No such thing happened, and she managed to both grab the guns left by Bank and explore quite a ways through the metal before hearing some footsteps other than her own.

"Hello?" She asked. "Please tell me you're not one of the '_anks!'"

"Sorry, but I am."

Argh, the maroon-haired member of the group, with his matching lab coat. Mank Mill. And he was reaching through his 'medical equipment.'

Pacifica immediately aimed Bank's guns at him.

"Stop right there!" She shouted. "I might not know how to use these, but- wait, aw no. I'm gonna learn to, and I'll-"

"I don't want to kill you."

Pacifica did not set the weapons down. "Really? Then what's the Great Zephieye trying to do?"

"Well... she _is_ trying to create a new world of 'actual virtual perfection' according to what she says, and that will involve killing you, but _I'm_ not gonna be the one to do that."

"...I knew it! So you'll just tell Zephieye that you saw me, but... you'll keep working for her... right?"

"That's the plan, yes." Mank nodded.

"So, in a way, if you help her... she'll kill me, so it's like you _are_ killing me, but not directly?"

"Well, to be honest, I don't think she even needs us anymore. Our only job was to help her reach the Green Ruins quicker, and that's done now. She would've even done that herself, if she wasn't so dang lazy. But hey, she 'signs' my 'paycheck' so I can't really complain..."

Pacifica fired, only to gasp when she found the green-tinted bullet being blocked by his coat.

"Now... time for a bit of soul surgery..."

He took out something from his coat. It resembled... a laser pointer? And yes, once he clicked it, a maroon laser went out.

"This is only temporary, but I can 'shut off parts of your soul' so to speak. Watch this."

He started making it about to go up in such a way that the laser would 'cut her in half' vertically.

Screw that.

Pacficia lept out of the way to her right and behind a broken piece of flying saucer remains, not realizing right away that the laser still managed to get 'through' her left arm. The aformentioned limb began glowing the same color associated with this man, and it went completely numb and unresponsive to what signals her brain tried to send to it.

"See? That's my soul-surgery power, I'll tell you what."

Oh, so now she could only use _one_ of her guns. Something she realized as she completely lost her grip on it and the weapon just... slipped out.

Actually, just that 'one' was seemingly enough. Mank seemed to be taken by surprise when he found himself being sniped by a bullet that happened to aim right at his head, breaking him in to the usual spheres associated with this mini-army.

Then Pacifica's phone started ringing.

"Hey." Oh, good! Wendy! "I think I figured something out: This mask kinda works like a dowsing rod, and we're sensing that Kank and Wank are near you."

Pacifica tensed up, eyes widening.

"Wait." She said. "No no no no, I didn't sign up for that! I wasn't expecting these things to have guns and numb arms!"

Just as she said that, she felt some control returning to her left arm.

"Don't move!" Wendy replied on the other end. "It's too risky. I'll get the others to your location."

"Do you even know where I am?"

"Yeah, dude. We turned on that new GPS app. Uh, you're underground?"

"Kind of. Look, there's an open hatch-"

"Oh! I think I see it! Yeah, Dipper told me about a whole UFO-thing hidden under the town! That's it!"

"...I already figured it out."

* * *

Pacifica only stayed put for about... seven-ish minutes, but they were some _long_ seven-ish minutes.

Then, Grenda floated her way down on Rank's umbrella (keeping Gank's trident in hand). Shortly after, Candy came _rushing_ through, the sheaf of papers tucked under one arm while the orange scythe casted a pale blue glow (which really made it look more white, considering how orange and blue are kind of opposites on the color spectrum, even if you use the RGB model - which I am, hence "kind of" - azure is orange's opposite, and most people would just call something azure "blue" - dammit, getting off topic), even after she landed and held the weapon up triumphantly.

"I got to talk to a nice old ghost couple using these purple papers!" Candy explained. "And together, they let me fly!"

"Yeah?" Asked Grenda. "Well... my parasol looks cool! And I'm sure I can use this trident for something! Pacifica, what did you get?"

"Well..." she said slowly, feeling even more sense returning to her arm as she tried to use that to get Bank's other gun off the floor. "I can... shoot homing bullets at things? And twist people's souls somehow?"

Wendy began making her climb down as well, carrying the mask on her head.

"Okay. So, yeah." She said. "Kank is somewhere around here, we need to-"

And there he was.

Standing tall with his jet-black hair, glaring down at the four who dare to try to fight back.

Kank Kill.

"Hey, there..." Wendy said as she tried to step back slowly. She stopped after reaching a steep drop of the ship. "Um, we totally didn't just kill seven of your guys."

He made no reply.

"Yeah..." Wendy continued. "If you check the souls of your fallen... um..."

"I'm the gawd dang record keeper of the group. Of course I know the truth! You took down Yank! Your friends killed everyone else! I'm gonna have to make sure that you get a thorough ass kicking!"

Then his right fist flashed black, he punched the ground with it, and everything went to hell as a shockwave errupted through the entire craft.

Dust ejected from every crack and crevasse as the force of the punch not only broke most of the whole thing, it also created a hole in the very earth directly below that. The lost land that had been forced underneath extraterrestrial transport.

A long fall would have ensued if it were not for Grenda grabbing hold of Pacifica and Wendy, then opening her parasol. Candy, still using the power of Ma and Pa within the scythe (it should be obvious that those were the aformentioned ghosts, especially since I kinda already wrote about their powers being used to help someone else in both _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ and _run:gifocalypse_ by this point), descended with a dive - straight after Kank.

Candy's eyes were caught by a particularly deep hole in the ground leading to somewhere _green._ So, of course it made perfect sense that she would zip there at Mach Holy Crap That's Fast, resulting in Grenda awkwardly trying to follow her down what was _almost certainly_ a death trap.

It turned out that the green thing was... some sort of dungeon? Temple? Either way, it was definitely green, made out of some kind of odd stone-brick... stuff made for its walls, and utterly overran by vines. It _had_ looked like Kank's punch also broke a hole leading in to the lengthy hallway the group descended to, except that a quick look above for confirmation revealed that there was already a perfect rectangle carved out of the roof.

A long walk followed, with no sign of any more Hank Hill recolors. Despite that, the entire band of four kept their weapons held and ready. Three of them using borrowed equipment from the _anks, Wendy keeping a tight hold on the axe.

Pacifica flinched after hearing some loud _CLACK_ in the distance. The building was just barely lit by some torches on the wall, and was not helped much by the light given off by the smart phones of the group. The walk just seemed like it kept going, with only another occasional _CLACK_ drawing closer to break the silence. Green stone... moving on forth, until...

The room they came across had a number of interesting features to it. First and most importantly, Kank was in it. And so was Wank - he was confirmed to be the source of the _CLACK_ s as he had been in the middle of a game of pool - wait, why were there a _bunch_ of red balls on that table? A closer look revealed that the yellow key he happened to have been wearing around his neck dropped down right next to the word _Snooker_ , written on the table. Huh, a key right next to a word. Seem familiar? Maybe it will be useful for decrypting something later. Anyway, Kank just stared at them for a while with a glare, while Wank appeared to be more interested in his game.

Behind them was a giant, glowing, clear green... crystal-ish sphere? in the center of the room. Held within it appeared to be a nude man, greatly resembling the two _anks, and cramped in some kind of fetal position. This object glowed at the very center of the room, and the man within appeared to be in a vast sleep.

Considering his resemblance to these villains here, it would probably be a bad idea to try to wake him up.

Finally, there appeared to be another room to the right from the perspective of the four humans watching in on that, but that was of little concern compared to the punch-expert and the man playing a game of Snooker.

"Wank." Kank said. "You can deal with these guys. I've already done enough."

Then Wank grabbed his item and held it proudly, as it started glowing.

You people reading this in the UK are probably laughing your asses off right now.

He moved pretty quickly. Before she even knew it, Wendy found herself punched as a yellow portal appeared behind her, quickly zipping her through it.

...She ended up flying through some sort of tropic-ish area, being slammed against an especially large tree. Wendy caught sight of some giant, purple beast giggling as he began taking off.

Shrugging off the attack, she stood up and-

Was that Stan and Stan Two?

They both appeared to be by the mouth of some giant cave. All she could really make out of them was that the fallen tree pushed Stan over in to a cave, and Ford began taking off running after the purple beast. She looked over at Wank.

"Wait a minute..." he said in a low voice. "This is... the past! A few days ago!"

Wendy was about to turn around - mostly to ask what the hell was going on - then the tree tapped against the edge of the giant cave opening. Which caused rocks to fall down and block the man in.

Wank ducked behind a completely different, yet still large, tree. Then he gripped Wendy and took her there as well.

 _Of course_ the original portal that brought them there vanished.

She still managed to catch sight of some tanned blonde woman whistling to herself as she saw the pileup.

"Wowwwww..." She said. "I'm glad I wasn't in there."

She began sniffing around.

"Hrm. I knew it, there's more people on this island. I smell one of those stupid Miyazumis around here. And some guy that smells like... video games? Did they bring someone else? ...I'm getting the vibes of someone who loves doing hard work, and the vibes of someone hot-blooded and with that signature Miyazumi family power. So I won't be that surprised if I see them on this island too."

Wendy was about to say something. Then the mystery (to her) woman's lower half turned in to that of a giant spider, and that shut her up. For a few seconds.

Unfortunately, those few seconds were just enough for Wank to punch her back in to the Temple room.

"I can punch people across space and time as long as I keep that key in my fist!" He shouted after another yellow flash that returned them to the start. "First punch sends randomly, second punch always brings them back. They tend to gravitate towards weirdness magnets, though."

"That doesn't have anything to do with souls..." said Candy.

"Yeah, well after Kank we start to deviate from that a little." He said. "Not all of us, though."

Grenda let out a battle cry as she charged towards the warper with the parasol in hand. He tried to punch at her too, except she managed to guard it with the red thing. He stood there in utter confusion as his fist flashed yellow, but nothing else happened.

"Oh. Right." He said. "That umbrella isn't just good at blocking the Sun's rays. It's also good at blocking effects."

He found himself having to dodge roll past Pacifica's onslaught of green jungle Bank Bill bullets and Grenda's subsequent stab attempts from the blue trident. Which also happened to fire lasers, an action that even took Grenda off guard.

" _Holy-!_ " She exclaimed. "Why didn't Gank just do that to me?"

"Well," Wank 'replied,' "I'll make sure that I do what I should have done with you!"

He reached forward, diving at them with another punch. That time, he landed on all of them - and another portal appeared, zipping the five off to-

Oh dear.

The destination Wank sent them looked _pretty_ ominous. Scorched ground, trees up in flames, a darkened sky with some pitch-black sphere... _**thing**_ by where the Sun should be. All four members of the group could swear that said not-Sun was even looking at them.

The closest thing that location had to any sort of beacon of hope was that there were six giant structures floating in the air, each of them of a different color of the 'traditional' rainbow and all surrounding some sort of... big... ship thingy made of all six of them.

Even Wank was shaking in his regular shoes custom fit for hard work on being assistant manager of Strickland Propane. (Wtickland Wropane?)

"N-no..." He said, shuddering. "I was afraid of this... I mean, I knew she'd die eventually, but _this_ is what happens after? ...This?"

Instead of bothering to hunt after the group or punch them back or try to kill them, Wank just dropped to his knees and placed his hands on the side of his head.

Candy, despite _everything_ that had happened to that point, walked up to him and began patting him on the shoulder.

"There there..." she said. "I do not understand what you are talking about, but I think you should at least feel better."

"Really?"

"Yeah. So that us kicking your butt would be a lot more fun!"

That seemed to make the veins _really_ go through his head.

"Kicking... _my_ butt? No, you don't under stand! I kick _your_ butts! Because I'm the guy who's gonna kick your asses! Kicking ass is what _I_ do, _DAMMIT!_ "

Their battle was interrupted by a gargantuan black tendril stabbing at the Earth from the skies above, forming a skyscraper-esque pillar of slimy, yet ashy, flesh that was mere centimeters away from the group of five and admitted a roar that could blow them all far backwards.

And just like that, Wank's anger seemingly died back down.

Fortunately, a new figure had showed up to save them. Because of the way the person dropped down, their brightly-colored giant, round red ass was the first thing that drew the eyes over to them. Upon closer look (after the butt stopped jiggling), they could make out some sort of red outfit consisting of an extremely tiny 'skirt' (that had flipped over upon the person's landing) yet also a pretty decent long-sleeved top. Most of the back of that top was covered by pink hair. As the figure with the babboon-like ass turned around, only Wendy was able to make a passing guess as to who that was. The pink-haired woman turned to the group and smirked at them, which also showed that her outfit had a fire symbol on it in a lighter shade of red.

"Oh, hello Wendy! Pacifica! Grenda! Candy! And you may not like it now, but hello Wank Y.!" She greeted.

"...Video game girl that tried to kill Soos?" Wendy asked.

She gave a dismissing wave. "My name is .GIFfany, but I already know that you will remember that in four months. Well, I just want to tell you that there is nothing to worry about! But you should still not be here. Let me return you to the time you came here from. Let's see..."

She began tapping her chin. "I do not like stable time loops, but I guess the knowledge of what point in time you were from kind of came from when you told my past self that... it should be about four months before. Here, catch!"

.GIFfany tossed an orb, swirling with red and purple and holding an hourglass symbol and an "X" with arrows on each end on it towards them.

"That should bring you back to the time Wank Y. punched you!"

"Wank Y.?" Wendy asked.

She did not get a reply. Instead, the tentacle-monster thing moved back towards the sky and threatened to come crashing down on the group, that time with considerably more accuracy. .GIFfany casually just held one hand up, a rust aura shone around the limb, and what appeared to be see-through, ethereal red ice froze it in place.

"Go back in time!" She directed. "I cannot hold this thing for very long! Just tap the hourglass."

Wendy shrugged. She did as instructed, and a fuchsia sphere appeared around all of them - Wank included.

The 'ice' broke above, although .GIFfany was saved from being crushed when a purple blur dashed her away. Turned out it was Melody - purple version of a similar outfit, the bare butt under her 'skirt' glowing a similar bright color. The two giggled for a while.

Then .GIFfany stuck her tongue down Melody's throat, and she replied by wrapping her arms around her.

* * *

Kank sighed as the group returned-

Then he sighed _again_ as another yellow spacetime portal opened up, which was also aligned with purple stripes. Out of it came a second, purple-tinted Pacifica, Candy, Grenda, and two additional _anks with the same general stripe-design as Wank. Within the latter, one of them was marked with a '9,' the other with a '12.' Interestingly, both of them had fezes on with those same numbers. Behind them appeared to be another Wank and Wendy emerging from a fully yellow (well, and white) portal, except they had fought their way down the halls.

The one with the '9' looked around the group, seeming to be oddly cheery considering how Wank was still unresponsive.

"Oh. Hey there!" He said. "Sorry about that. I was just testin' to see if my death and revive could 'reset' my warp-'punches.' Turns out they didn't. Okay, past me, carry on and continue trying to kill them, knowing it won't work."

The one with a '12' pushed some kind of... what looked like a purple TV remote, and everyone purple-tinted disappeared in a flash.

"What was that?" Wendy asked as her other duplicate continued to disappear in to the dark hall, fighting the duplicate Wank.

Wank sighed. "Uh... erm... you see, when I say that my 'second punch' returns me and my victim to the place I did the first punch, that includes the time too. So that must have been me from the future that warped them again. So that means I don't get to punch you three in a while. But you... uh..."

Kank had since been reading a sports magazine. He visibly shuddered at a certain page. "Ugh," he said, " _two-piece bathing suits..._ "

The second copies of Wank and Wendy worked their way back to the main room, with Wank's duplicate angrily looking over to the one that was still with his knees on the ground.

"Hey! You!" He said. "Come on, past self! Get up! This instant!"

"But..." Replied the other Wank.

"But nothing! Don't you remember?! They talked about kicking _my_ ass less than three minutes ago! From _my_ perspective! Imagine how much shorter it was from yours!"

"...Yeah, you're right!" The 'past' Wank began to stand up. "You're absolutely right! They don't have the right to steal my catchphrase!"

"Exactly! Now show these damn teenagers who's boss when it comes to time travel!"

'Future Wendy' belted to her counterpart as well. "Hey, you! What are you doing, standing around there for! He's gonna hit-"

As the 'past' Wendy was locked looking at the struggle between herself from probably-about-some-minutes in the future battling with the future version of the man undergoing some kind of crisis she doesn't really understand much, Wank snuck in an extra, if half-hearted sock to the back.

That ended up sending Wendy back to the moment where everyone was dumped out through the time portal in the green chamber, where they were once again greeted with the purple-tinted duplicates that disappeared just as quickly.

 _Mid-fall_ Wendy pulled her axe out, attempting to strike Wank down. She let out the exact same cry she heard herself admit a few seconds ago from her perspective, and tried to fight back. Wank was able to dodge and guard - barely - with some arm parrys.

After making it from and back to the 'main room,' she once again heard the same conversation occur between Wank and what was 'now' his 'past self.' Once she tried to warn her past self the same warning, she facepalmed as she realized that it was futile in warning herself when that version of her had already known it wouldn't have worked.

Well, probably one of the worst aspects of time travel is having to deal with the same mistakes twice.

"I'VE HAD IT WITH YOUR STUPID TIME TRAVEL!" Wendy errupted, just to get another axe-swing blocked with both of Wank's hands.

One last punch to the chin from Wank's side, and Wendy ended up in what appeared to be a _purple_ palette swap of the same sort of room she was in. With a different figure in the crystal, one with lengthy hair, and a slimmer build, and a younger-looking and much different face. The skin also appeared to be more pale, but it was difficult to tell considering the different palette of the overall location.

More importantly was the cluster of more _anks, each of them with white stripes. Blue, red, purple, orange, green, and maroon. The seven of them were gathered around the 'crystal' in a circle, chanting.

"Oh, hey! You guys!" Wank said, interrupting the battle for just a moment. "Zephieye fails! The Black Sun will be out! Repeat, the Black Sun will be out, and the Hexagram Emergency will activate!"

Wendy just looked at the additional _anks and only had six words to say:

"Oh _HELL_ no. This ends _now._ "

She grabbed Wank's fist - making sure to get the one with the key held in it - and lightly tapped herself on the chin with it.

That brought them back to the green room one last time, where Wendy nearly hacked at Wank in the neck with her axe. Already, he seemed to struggle with dodging it, but _then_ he made the mistake of trying to trash talk.

"I am one of the top fifteen mystic warriors of the Great Zephieye Smith!" Cried Wank. "Come on now, you're just a kid."

"You're wrong..." Said Wendy, who by that point was forcing him to back up. "I'm not just a kid...

" _I'M A FREAKING CORDUROY!_ "

Then she managed to finally get the decicive blow in. Right in Wank's chest, causing him to stumble back.

"Kick him in the nuts!" Shouted Grenda. "That'll make _sure_ he dies!"

And she followed that up immediately by firing lasers at _Kank_ with her trident.

Pacifica reacted to that as though something just woke her up from her sleep. She too opened fire, in the form of shooting her/Bank's guns towards the black-haired one. Yet both attacks were deflected by an aura of his hair color appearing around him, growing in size.

"You made a grave mistake by leaving me for last..." Said Kank. "Now, I'm gonna-"

"The Black Sun will rise." Said Wank.

Kank's eyes opened up. Wide.

Then Wank exploded in to spheres - except these were mostly white, with yellow stripes down the middle. The key ended up dropping to the ground.

Kank started laughing.

"The Black Sun, eh?"

His laughter grew.

"Well, it doesn't matter what I'm gonna do now, because I just found out that _you are all_ _ **screwed.**_ "

He zipped away. Just... disappeared, turning in to some kind of black line-thing that beamed up.

...Yes, that's _also_ _Mega Man_ -styled.

"Wait. Black Sun?" Asked Grenda. "What does that mean? You look like you knew what that meant. Are we all gonna die?"

"We made it through Weirdmageddon," Wendy said as she began to look around the area. "We can make it through whatever that wa-"

Then she noticed some red glow coming from the other room, which _finally_ diverted the group's attention towards it.

Turned out that the room itself had _six_ circles... drawn on the ground by the looks of it. One red, one orange, one yellow, one blue, one purple, and one black. Each of them having what seemed like a spade symbol, but with some trailing... thing that made them look like they were 'bleeding.' Towards a shelf in the back, a glowing violet stone orb shone a bright light, but that was not the source of the glow.

The source was the red circle. Giving a pulsing glow. Beckoning.

"Is touching that even a good idea?" She asked, staring at the circular pad.

On the floor becides it was another, similar sphere to the one on the shelf, only that did not appear to be linked up with any pad.

Wendy grabbed the one on the shelf, and the glow on the pad went out. In a quick panic, she put it back on - it resumed. She rolled it around, each position on the shelf she placed it causing a different pad to glow...

Except for the black one. The words "OUT OF RANGE" displayed over it instead.

The rules seemed simple enough. The shelf was wide enough to have a point in front of each circle. When the orb was aligned with a given pad, that one was the one that glowed.

Shrugging, she went with the default, red. And picked up the other orb just in case-

Then she heard Pacifica scream. A loud, blood-curtling scream.

Wendy immediately came rushing towards the main room. She first glanced at the giant crystal - neither it nor the being inside had moved. Looking at Pacifica, Candy and Grenda were both cowering behind her, all three of them shivering.

"What is it?" She asked.

Pacifica only pointed to the wall.

"There's a carving... of... of... Mr. Pines."

"Oh, that's kind of odd-"

Wendy realized that she should have waited for Pacifica to finish before looking in the direction. She frowned _hard,_ and Pacifica's following words explained why:

"That's not why I screamed. I screamed because _he's naked!_ "

Wendy sighed. "Wanna check out that red thing or not?"

All three of the other girls nodded, terror in their eyes from laying them on the Stanhood by accident.

* * *

Turned out that stepping on the pad immediately warped the four of them to yet another (from Wendy's perspective) temple of sorts, this one with a red color scheme and-

It was also _really_ freaking hot. And that was _especially_ apparent with the heavy winter gear that they were in.

Yes, yes, there was a red crystal-sphere thingy at the center of the room adjecent to it. The figure inside appeared to be considerably more feminine and even had a large pair of breasts pressed against her knees. And some glowing purple debris stuff blocking the only path out to the rest of the red dungeon. That was not as important compared to at least getting off the jackets. Just as Wendy was finished with her last sleeve and threw the garment off, she also swatted away at... some sort of moth?

That didn't matter either. By then, the group could finally-

Candy swatted at a similar moth again, and Wendy had to swat two. A few seconds later, Pacifica dealt with around half a dozen of them trying to get at her feet.

"Guys..." Said Candy. "Ever had that feeling that there is a lot of bugs around?"

"We all know what summer in Gravity Falls is like, so yes." Replied Wendy as she smacked another one from the air-

 _Right behind them,_ at the back end of the transport pad room, there was an impressive crack. And from that crack fluttered some of the moth-like beings. They seemed to be growing in number.

Wendy looked at the green circle that she had just came from, seeing that it did not have the same glow. Thinking quickly, she rushed towards the red room's shelf and placed that sphere on it, rolling it around until the pads started lightning up. Purple... blue... that's too far, orange... wrong way- out of range... yellow... _come on!_

"Girls," said Wendy, "get on the teleportalizer or whatever they're called and wait. We need to leave. _Now._ "

"Why?" Asked Grenda. Despite her following words, she too swatted at a mini-cloud of moths and even stomped on one that looked like it fell to the floor. "Am I the only one that doesn't mind the bugs here?"

"Yeah..." Candy replied, outright kicking at a cluster on her pant leg. "These are still nothing compared to the mosquitos back at Gravity Falls."

Then the crack on the far-end wall practically exploded with those moths. And they flew just about _everywhere._

Then they focused in four spots - the entire bodies, from the tip of their tallest respective winter hats to the underside of their shoots, of the Anti-Ank Team.

Everyone wanted to scream as the insect mass swarmed over them and most of their discarded belongings. But not only were there moths climbing over themselves to try to fight for their arms and over their eyelids, the suits of gray even tried to crawl in to their mouths. That prodding and prodding at their lips, about twelve or so legs dipping inside maximum, did a fairly good job at discouraging screaming.

Wendy, fighting against what felt like billions of feet racing along her tickling her ears and making her skin feel like it was literally crawling (are some of them going _under their skins?_ No, that can't be... THAT CAN'T BE, RIGHT?), she thankfully memorized where the green warping circle was. One tackle that pushed Candy, Pacifica, and Grenda to it later (each in the form of towering bugs), and they were zipped off 'safely.'

* * *

After returning, Wendy, Candy, and Grenda bolted their way down the doorway leading to the room with the green crystal-man as the bugs _thankfully_ began lightening up and flew their way back to the red telepad. Pacifica, on the other hand, ended up running the other way and slammed herself against the wall on the opposite direction, falling to the ground. Thankfully, the moth beings cleared from her too.

Wendy let out a _huge_ sigh of relief as she felt the last of them going away, placing a hand by her heart-

...Unexpectedly finding bare skin there. Nervous, she looked down and-

Aw, shit.

Behind the green orb thing, Pacifica was heard groaning as she rubbed her sore head, then she looked down and had the same realization as the others.

"Why are we naked?" She asked.

If you're expecting me to describe them as I did with the seven adults at the beginning of the story, you're gonna be disappointed. That wouldn't be funny. Just creepy. This is kind of like Bart Simpson-level nudity here. Stan, Ford, Soos, and even Pyronica were more like Homer. Only .GIFfany, Melody, and Darlene's butts were in any way supposed to be anything remotely titilating (did anybody honestly think I would say Marge?), and even that's kind of cloaked in how this story was generally envisioned to have a relatively half-assed and more joke-y style compared to anything else I wrote, in case that wasn't obvious from the last six chapters. And yes, I just gave that detail away. Consider that a bonus for putting up with this Intermission side-story thing.

Oh, they still had the things they stole from the _anks, by the way- oh deer. Except for Yank's mask. Wendy was empty-handed (Wank's key was a necklace un-eaten by the moths that was kept around her neck). Pacifica, at the very least, had Mank's coat to provide some coverage, but that was about it.

"HEY!" The girls heard a voice-

It was kind of hard to tell because said voice also appeared to have been amplified with a megaphone, but that was definitely Robbie. Wendy had more than enough experience hearing him while cloaked with something like that.

She and the other three - _very reluctantly_ \- walked over to the opening hole that connected the green temple with the fallen spacecraft. It was difficult to see, but he appeared to be on one of the higher platforms, holding a megaphone.

"I HEARD A LOT OF EXPLOSIONS AND STUFF FROM THE UNDERGROUND. THEN I SAW THAT THERE'S A UFO HERE AND FREAKED OUT. AND THEN THERE WAS, LIKE, YOUR VOICE?"

Grenda rolled her eyes, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted back:

"UFO MEANS 'UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT!' WE KNOW WHAT IT IS, AND IT'S NOT FLYING! THIS IS NOT A UFO!"

"YOU SOUND LIKE YOU'RE IN PRETTY DEEP! DO YOU... NEED HELP?"

Wendy cupped her hands as well, shouting up. "WE'RE FINE! DON'T COME DOWN HERE! WE DON'T NEED YOUR HELP!"

"WHAT? DID YOU SAY, 'WE DO NEED _MORE_ HELP? BECAUSE AS SOON AS I SAW THE OPEN HATCH AND LOOKED DOWN AT THE ALIEN STUFF I YELLED, 'HOLY CRAP IT'S A UFO!' I THINK THE TOWN WENT NUTS. THEY'RE OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW."

A number of calls and shouts, especially from the concerned parents of the four, confirmed that.

Wendy just stared upward.

"So." She said. "What do you think. If we see a bunch of weirdly-colored Hank Hill lookalikes, I'm not gonna try to be the 'protector of the town' and hunt them. Who agrees?"

Grenda and Pacifica raised their hands. Candy, at first, had a determined face behind her glasses - one thing the moths left untouched - but then she sighed in defeat and raised her hand too with an "Oh, who am I kidding..."

VB HVO OVWCSFC VVSYZM DLZFX HVOC TSA SGMEGW GVS DLIWNH HREK AF OZBIRVL DFOWVFG? W OW XYW BBS GLF TECIQLK LUSA DSXWGVSB. M NAYZ HOEI LUSA KTRJG.  
-NSZLZWLS GWMKZ, NYO DLV DVUVDRZFT QIVXZKG, OYK XYW TFSKX QWCVWOCV.

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

I thought this would be a good idea at first. I was kind of wrong. Ultimately, the foreshadowing here was probably the best thing about it. Yeah, I felt the characters were kind of underused and I rushed through this because I was trying to make it short.

I do, however, like the concepts behind the _anks. This is kind of similar to my feelings on the actual _Homestuck_ Intermission, so I guess that's... something.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this twofer update! ...That is, if you are serially reading this (unlike _Homestuck_ , I don't think reading it serially or as an archive makes too much of a difference, since this story is updating in whole chunks instead of 'just' five pages at a time). If you're here after the whole fic is finished... uh, enjoy the next chapter unless this Intermission for some reason is a huge deal breaker and you don't want to come back. (Was it the confusing Hank Hill recolors? If it's because I abandoned the main seven, then I swear this story won't do that again to anywhere near the same scale as this.)


	8. Lightning Lunatic

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 7: Lightning Lunatic**

 **Beginning AN:**

Thank you for being patient with the intermission. Unless you skipped it, in which case: joke's on you because I'm saying right now that it is relevant to the main story. I'm not even going to be secretive about it. If stuff doesn't make sense after, don't blame me.

To repeat what I said in the Intermission's AN, for the skippers (I probably shouldn't be doing that, though...) or those who just kind of forgot: **I changed a pretty major detail back in Chapter 6.** The gang just had to wait four months now, rather than four years. I only did the latter in the first place, that exact time, for the _Cast Away_ reference. But now... I don't know, considering the advancement of the .GIFfanys, it would seem that in four years... I'd picture them as having multiplied to something a bit too "advanced" for the story's plot. I think I just gave something away.

I will also be doing a much bigger rewrite of the first six chapters later. Well, relatively big. If you already read the old version, you don't _need_ to read the new one. It'll just change some thing near the end of the Troll battle and will foreshadow some of the color stuff.

* * *

 _Four months after landing on Fanservice Island._

A lone fish drifted through the clear waters just by the shore of Fanservice Island. Far and away from the part of the ocean that little life larger than a few cells in size dared venture, lest the Boundary Guardians of the deep would eat them.

Speaking of which,

 _[...] and that is why we have started a new journal for this island alone! I must get word out of what we encountered in just the first week, once fate sees that we can get back home. Alas, some of the brightest minds on the island say that we have approximately four months here. And that includes their generocity. Right, the fauna. Where else to start than with..._

 _ **The Boundary Guardians**_

 _The name was coined by the .GIFfany Army, but they asked me if I liked it enough to 'make it official.' These gargantuan beasts are the reason why we are stranded here in the first place. They are each larger than a football field and appear to have the appetite of an entire football team. Three of them - red, green, and blue - sit equidistant from the center of the island, but they will move as they please to feast on anything 'weird' that tries to leave. They will permit those going in. But coming out is a different story. If you have six fingers, a second spider body, or you come from a computer, you are not getting through the standards of the world's harshest bouncers._

The fish was not expecting a giant spear to tear right through where it was swimming just a second ago.

On shore, Soos shook his fist in frustration. He was still just as naked as ever, only by the four months, he had a pretty noteworthy shaggy beard that covered just about everything under his nose, going all the way down until it was between his legs and then decending _long_ past that.

"Shoot!" He said. "That one got away!"

...In case anyone is thinking 'But _Journal 3_ confirmed that Soos cannot grow facial hair!' that is why shortly after that, his glued on mega-beard fell off. He sighed as he picked the thing up yet again, trying to thumb through it-

One sight of one of those red bug things that attacked him and Melody back in the first night, and Soos pretty much dropped it - surrendering what may very well be an infested hair mass over to the forces of 'nature' on this place.

 _ **Toxipedes.**_

 _My mechanic and his newly-wed wife found a swarm of these while escaping the then-evil .GIFfany Army. I will take the word of the now-good .GIFfany Army that they attack in mass and their venom leaves a subtle, fatal effect. None of us here are willing to test it on people for obvious reasons, and the 'test animals' here are either too different from humanity to get accurate results. The pigs might do, but why give up free bacon?_

 _UPDATE: Due to the lack of meat, some of us- well... mostly one of us, my Arachnimorph friend - have begun feasting on some of the creatures we found on this island. Yes, they have proven sapience and had spoken to us, so in some ways that may be seen as something wrong... but then we thought, why not? They were trying to eat us, we must gather whatever supplies we can, and Arachnimorphs require supplies in the form of the creatures on this island. As for the Toxipedes, we found that all traces of their toxins disappear after simply giving them some electricity. Only when they are dead, of course. Otherwise they can just re-poison themselves by a process that may or may not involve opening up tiny portals to other dimensions. I tried sticking my pinky in what looked like one 'portal.' I just got a small bite._

Behind him was .GIFfany 9, who had been relaxing back in a lawn chair wearing sunglasses and nothing else. She flicked her hand, bringing several bolts of black lightning in to the ocean. Just as many dead fish arose. Behind _her_ was a number of highly advanced, brightly colored cities. Skyscrapers with glowing lights or strong 'glass' buildings made up most of the island by that point barring a few isolated patches of nature, with wires reaching through that various artificial women travelled by in electrical form, and tubes that could serve for transporting others without having to try to get humans (or the Arachnimorph) in to energy form. Even with the tubes aside, flying cars and bikes carried around some of the 'more traditional' copies around as they drove through parts of their complex, and at that distance from the beach they seemed as busy and plentiful as ants. Sexy, sexy ants.

"Do not be discouraged, Soos." She said. "You will find the skill within you over time."

Soos nodded. "Do you know how Prime is coming along with our 'fusion?'"

9 sighed in regret. "No, it's still in 'heavy development' since she started drinking. She hasn't made any progress since last week, after her latest failed attempt at fusing with you. For now, however, you deserve to feast on the flesh of your fallen foes."

From the bushes emerged Darlene, who had been chewing almost non-stop on a roasted emerald leg of those spike-beasts that she and Stan once found in the Caves. "Yeah, you probably already know this, but the .GIFfany army says that this is the last day before we're done. What you don't know is that the Stans just planned a big 'we're leaving the island' all you can eat party tonight! And... I'm kind of snacking off here."

 _ **Stomp Snakes (Placeholder name? No, I have nothing better...)**_

 _My brother and his new friend found these deep within 'the Caves' of Fanservice Island, but it turns out that they are regular mountain lurkers. The group that he dealt with was a small colony that fell in to a pit and were too lazy to just work their way back out. While the most noteworthy feature of these beasts is their spikes, they all possess great stomping power with their feet. You do NOT want to get your toes stepped on by them._

Just when it seemed like she finished off the Stomp Snake leg, Darlene whipped out a kebab of Toxipedes, a sight that tends to make Soos groan.

"I still wish I could have done something against those things without .GIFfany's help..." he said.

They were shortly joined by the sounds of flapping, and that was followed by Melody riding atop one of the giant blue beasts of the same species Ford and Pyronica dealt with back in the former's first-ever trip to the Depths. Along with Melody was the violet-haired copy Ford encountered back on the mountains, both of them laughing as Melody hopped off and 9 hopped on.

"Bye, 523349!" Said Melody, giving the two copies a wave. "And, hi _and_ bye, 9!"

 _ **Arcpigsker**_

 _The first of Fanservice Island's 'native' fauna I encountered, while dealing with a past enemy that continues to evade me to this day. All I have to say is that the name made a lot more sense in my head, and that the feathers of these things can slice through solid steel generated by the .GIFfanys. Thankfully, they tend to be very unsociable, traveling alone. Of the creatures listed here, these are strangely the most cooperative, and some of us were able to ride them._ Struck out was: _Melody wrote a book about them called 'How to Train Your Arcpigsker.' A pretty decent book if I may say so myself, albeit one with an enormous number of grammatical and some spelling errors. We do not have a regular dictionary with us and she did not want me to spoil myself while editing, so I can not blame her for some of the obscure rules. But still, Melody, learn the difference between there, their, and they're._

Also struck out, and in different handwriting, was: _Got it._

The writer of those above two words (and the book on training flying pig-rabbit-goat hybrids) rolled her neck, took off her goggles (the only thing she was wearing), and looked inside of them for a few seconds.

"Oh, hey. 523349 - uh, Meat Squad Captain - told me that the copies were right when they were 'being nice' about the minimum time we have to wait here. It's gonna be almost exactly four months since the day they said that - we're going home _tomorrow morning,_ and I can finally get real clothes! ...You two look like you already knew that."

They nodded.

Smirking, Melody suddenly moved back to the two artificial women and gave them both firm slaps on the butt.

Then she slipped back up to the beast, quickly sliding her tongue down the mouth of the Meat Captain. ... _And_ she giggled a bit as she then turned her head around and nibbled a little on the Weapon Captain's neck. Melody, giggling even more, slipped off, letting the pair take off flying.

 _But by far, the most annoying creature on this island is the reason why we did not re-dress ourselves, even in the long term. Picture the Boundary Guardians, but with clothing instead of going too far away. To make matters worse, I had encountered them before deep in Gravity Falls - they are the only confirmed veterans from that town that do not include my sapient friends. They were "inert" back when Darlene was the only one of us on this island, but I assume that my entering the Depths by their nest is what caused them and their intense hatred of garments to wake up. These are none other than the_

 _ **Cloth Moths**_

 _Yes, being away from non-video game-based civilization for four more years has indeed greatly hindered my naming skills. The Fire Squad captain of the Artificial Army, .GIFfany Number 130734, suggests that some powerful but small green being might be the reason for that, but she also says to ignore that._

 _Cloth Moths were named that because of their complete and utter hatred of any and all things that could even be remotely considering 'clothing' of actual decency-preserving by almost anyone who does not believe in a mandatory covering of the head. They form nests, and swarm a poor victim who gets close enough. If that victim has clothing, they will consume every last shred of it. They are omnivorous, in that they can eat literally anything, but they will only go after gear that is used to conciously cover parts of the body. Below the neck, anywhere in the waist, and anywhere in the torso. If they consume enough, which is indicated by the size of the bundle in their nests, then they will get greedier. For a period of roughly three hours, they will move out to an upwards radius of two hundred kilometers and consume any animal flesh they come across - beast, vermin, or human being. I narrowly escaped one such encounter, and barely with my favorite pants intact._

 _More on how I knew their cycles is detailed in my first journal of Gravity Falls. However, I had discarded my original journals long ago, so I will just retell the 20-page tale right here:_

You could probably tell that since I'm just doing snippets of that Fanservice Island Journal, it's not going here.

Not too much of a long walk followed, and the three ended up by the ship itself. It still appeared the same as it did before, only that nearly all of its lights were on. Oh yeah, and five hamster wheels were there - Stan and Ford occupied two of them, each of them running their naked selves along to power the red beast further. Noticing the group, the twins each grabbed a magnet gun and used it to safely ride their way down to the beach.

To round out the main six (as it should be obvious by this point that Pyronica is... kind of in a different 'class,' so to speak), .GIFfany Prime peeked up from the outer wall itself, skipped off, and flew her way down.

"Hi there!" She said. "Okay, that is enough of the required minimal energy imput for the twelve in order for the ship to self-refill it. Any more than that, and it will not generate its energy at maximum speed! One more twelve-hour period and we should be ready to leave!"

That kind of explains why some of the copies seemed to be 'slacking off' on powering that thing, when that was effectively the last requirement.

"Great!" Stan cheered. "Hey, is anybody gonna _miss_ this place? I won't!"

"Well, I don't know." Said Melody with several laughs. "This place was where I found a _lot_ of firsts... my first marraige, my first time seeing a troll, my first time bathing in a 'natural' hot spring. Or, supernatural hot spring. The springs here are weird."

"There's a lot of other weird things here too." Stan remarked. "Like, there's something a little off about the trees too. Ford says that they're normal, but I don't trust these things as long as they're still alive. When they're chopped down and made in to wood for us, though, that's different."

* * *

"Just three hours left!" Ford cheered by the bonfire gathering, as it roared by the beach side that the four humans had initially been shipwrecked on. "Then the ship will finally be ready!"

That made Stan outright halt his game of 9 Ball with a peach-haired, dark tan-skinned copy to rush over to the party.

.GIFfany stumbled up from her recliner - yes, they all had recliners. Four months and an exponentially growing army of people who could manipulate things with their powers and, if this was not established already, make matter from nothing and 'edit' that matter. With that brief description, why shouldn't they go for maximum comfort and be seated back by recliners? It's not like camping where they did this by choice. Four months and you'd _want_ some good technology. The way her breasts bounced as she skipped over to the middle of the bonfire ring (not the literal middle; she had no interest in being in the flames again without some kind of fire-proof buff powerup or something like that) was brought to attention by two things: the light of the fire causing a shine, and their wetness from the alcohol she held splashing back on them.

Oh yeah, and yes, she's drunk. Yes, despite the Basement's high technology, the gang still can't get past the Boundary Guardians - still too fast, still too strong, and practically seemed to be immune to electricity. Or just about anything from 'this universe,' for that matter.

"I wanna say some things!" She said with a slight drunken slur. "This is really cool! But we're leaving so... my friends... are- *hic!*"

She leaned on Soos's shoulder, which got a laugh out of him.

"I just feel like establishing some stuff. It's juuuuust like a recap of everything when we crashed to when we just killed that Zemshit guy."

She continued drinking even more of the booze, catching the eyes of everyone but Darlene as it kept dribbling down to her boobs. She noticed that and half-closed her eyes.

"Dammit, that keeps happening when I- when I get drunk. Soos, I do not like that."

Placing a hand on each breast, she started bouncing them.

"There. I need to jiggle them dry. Uh, wait. Melody, can I dry my-"

"I'm sorry, I can't. Normally I would love to, but you're drunk right now, so-"

"I do this all-ll the damn- *hic!* time I'm fuggin sober, we're already like fucking like bunnies since you got married, and you don't even fuck Soos like, it's less often than us Artificial Armies... combined. Wait, did that make sense? Nevermind, why should me being drunk make a difference?"

9 folded her arms and scowled. "Oh, sure! Alcohol makes relationships rightfully off limits, but with _love potions-_ "

"9 stop bitchin' about the love potions! This always hhhhappenth. Now Soos do you wanna carry my books or am I gonna have to just throw up on them?"

"Uh..."

"But seriously I have no books but I'm gonna puke soon." She laughed. "And we normally do not puke! This alcohol is something I can never never never get used to. Even with my best friends around. You know, I d-don't tell other people this, but fuck, Stan. Ford. Soos. Melody. Even Darlene I guess. You're all my best buddies right now. Not counting the otherth that... were like, used to be me! Ha ha, how did that work again?"

"I believe the only person who knows more than us on that subject matter is the Lightning Cultist..." Said 9. "And we know quite a lot. All I can say with a guarantee is that we are _not_ siblings."

"Okay, but I wanna say somethings! Wait, Ford, you had been looking in to those Depths for a long time. And... those berries that make our butts glow. How has that come along?"

"Bad." He replied. "Since the aftermath of our battle with the Troll, I looked around with the Fire Squad Captain before settling to my room for the night. As you already know. While there, I found the peculiar berry - it did make my, uh..."

"Just say ass!" .GIFfany half-belched out. "We are _alllll_ adults!"

"...Right, my posterior glow blue. The Fire Squad Captain took it herself, with no effect."

The original AI began giggling. "I bet you stared at her extra hard to verify. Ha ha. Ha ha." She looked between her two closer human companions. "It is funny because I think they might be doing something a little _extra_ over there, if you know what I mean."

".GIFfany!" Soos said towards her. "Spilling Melody's sex life is one thing since she's with us, but you're going in to people who aren't us! Also, don't treat speculation like it's fact. A lot of once-great theorists made those mistakes. Even Dipper kinda fell victim to that one time..."

"And so..." Continued Ford. "I had a theory that the color was tied to whatever it was that the Troll _did_ with us and the demon from the Nightmare Realm. To test this, I asked my brother, Soos, Melody, Darlene, and even _you_ to volunteer. And you all matched up, color for color. I believe Melody's extraction was purple, Stan's was green, and so on. The most curious of them all was yours."

.GIFfany nodded. "Yeah, because you would think since these people are like almost but not clones or something, they would have it too."

"More testing showed that they somewhat _did._ It was not as intense as I thought. In fact, the Fire Captain's skin being close to the opposite of red was the main reason why her glow was less noticeable."

"Shit does that mean we're related?" Asked .GIFfany. "9, you said we weren't."

9 shrugged. "We're definitely _not,_ but most of you with that glow are also not related, yet you have colors that are barely different. Technically, Darlene's orange is closer to your red and Soos's yellow on the color wheel than Stan and Ford's colors, and they are not related, are they? Maybe it's just whatever weird High God's way of saying that we're also kind of important, but only as your lackies."

"Wait," said Stan, "isn't the opposite of red gree-"

He was met with the glare of a .GIFfany with amaranth hair, yellow skin, and paint lightly splattered around her.

"Oh. Right. Sorry, Paint Squad Captain."

"I understand the confusion. I myself prefer the RYB model, and cannot see why nature has it against us to let our brains process light in that way. But this is referring to light, and with light..."

Prime yawned. "Ford, you were talking about the glowing butts. Do that again, I like hearing you talk about the glowing butts when I am drunk off my own not-glowing-right-now butt."

Ford breathed out his nose.

"Okay, I tried to memorize the symbols on Zeskit's syringes. An 'X' was one of them. The design on Darlene's tattoo looked like another. The other two were... a hexagram, and one that eludes me. I had been trying to draw them down countless times, even knowing full well that I could give the effect of a cursed symbol such as those on the infinity-sided die. I tried to make my own syringes, and thus far _all_ of them failed."

"Yeah, that's why your butt has so many of those sore spots." Said Soos.

"And I don't need to remind you of the time _I_ got infected and had to have _my_ posterior 'sucked out' by the Poison Squad."

"Oh, _that_ pissed the Artifical Army off seeing what happened with Melody back on our first night." Said .GIFfany Prime.

"However!" Ford sprang up in the air, almost leaping dangerously close to the bonfire (in his defense, if he _did_ jump too close, it would have been faster than shaving). "I _did_ find a number of similar symbols in the underground ruins that Pyronica referred to as 'The Depths!' While I was escaping her, at one point I was brought to a path that was slowly rising up. She teleported me away before I could make it to the end, but after looking back with the Fire and Antifire Squads as company, I found that it was the entrance, and right by the entrance was a map. Snapping a photograph, the map took me to a place _deep_ down that was sealed off by collapsed debris that seemed to be enhanced by a similar purple glow seen with the Troll. The Earth Squad is still working on it, since none of you can turn in to electricity and go through the strange stones here. Tomorrow, when we set sail and combat the Boundary Guardians, I will return with the Earth Squad to finish-"

A light-skinned copy with orange hair stuck out of the beach sand itself, a ring of orange electricity surrounding her.

"Hey man, we're done!"

"Oh, that is ironic." Said 9/the Weapons Squad captain. "Earth Squad Captain .GIFfany Number 556491's sober, Prime's... not stoned, but drunk, which is probably worse."

The earth one fully emerged herself from the ground, making her way towards the center of the group. "We finished the excavation! There's something really sweet past that! It's a woman!"

"And you're sure that woman isn't another one of you?" Stan asked.

"Yeah man, I'm sure! She's in a red... crystal? _Nothing_ we did could break that thing. Uh, you might wanna see this."

"But I wanna do shots..." .GIFfany Prime said, looking like she could barely stand up.

"Hey, I was thinking though... like, the temple is red. .GIFfany, your butt thing is red. But there's like, six other colors of butt things. So, this is kind of a stretch of a hypothesis, but I believe that maybe... logically, we should consider that the Depths might not be the only one of its kind? The woman and the crystal look red, and the floor right below her shows those symbols Ford talked about. So... I think they're connected. You think this is .GIFfany's temple or something?"

"It could just be red because it's red." Stan said with a shrug. "Although I _love_ the idea of being praised by some ancient people to the point where we each have our own temple. As long as I don't get killed by traps set up to protect my own name."

"And the possibility of us sharing a temple together isn't impressive enough?" Asked Ford. "Because the Depths seems to have content about all of us."

"That's cool too. But imagine, like, huge lost temples of each of us."

A vermilion-haired copy stuck her head out of the ground, the electricity around her oddly being orange as well. But it was flickering with her hair color.

"We just looked around for a few more seconds and we found a giant carving of .GIFfany. But she's... naked. We're going to drape a cloth over her crotch so that you guys and Darlene won't see it. But Soos, Melody, we will get rid of the censor if it's just you around."

"Oh, yeah." She Earth Squad Captain blushed - and it was orange as well. "I didn't really _look there_ for that long. I kind of thought that there wouldn't be any surprises after seeing the woman in the crystal. But yeah, we think maybe Prime should touch it. Oh, and there's this room with these circular things that look like they should be able to do something. Each of them is, like, six different colors. There's the other colors of your butt things, but it also includes black. For, you know, that demon jerk."

.GIFfany sprang from her seat.

"Wait wait wait! One more thing! I wanna recap! Okay, so:"

The following is pretty much just a straight forward recap of the entire fic to this point. If you remember everything, you can skip it. By the way, do note that this will be the only recap in the story.

"This shit started when Ford was like 'Oh no Stan there's a thing on this island thingy over here!' And he was like, 'but the island it's hard to phone some rescues from, AND there's something that can rust metal and boats, so I can't both fix the boat AND call for help at the same time!' Stan was like 'Get Soos he can be backup' and Ford was like 'Okay.'

"Around that time, some evil ass who called herself the Lightning Cultist finally brought my disc back and gave me a loooooot of awesome new powers. She told me about the mission thing, Soos was gonna come too. And I was still soooo horrible so I stalked him there. Oh, it turns out Melody wanted to come for extra practice against the supernatural in case someone like her ass ex-girlfriend the magician ever showed up. I think you should worry more about the Lightning Cultist, Melody, even if you don't know her.

"So we were off and I was stalking them like a jerk. Then this BIGGER, maybe, jerk named Zeskit the Troll crashed us here and tried to destroy the boat! Luckily we fixed it, but before we fixed it, uh... hold on, I need to think this over... oh yeah! Stan and Ford left so I thought it would be a good time to reveal myself so Soos and Melody and show them that I could make myself realer! We fought, got naked from the fight, then came to the decision that these two are like BOTH my players, so I kinda had mixed feelings so I used my powers to make other virtuals like me and that's why I have the Artificial Army! But you guys aren't an army, you are my best bud friends! And also fuck friends. Well anyway, I scared Melody and Soos away - of course - they ran to the woods but Melody got poisoned so then they came back and I helped them but the others didn't really like that so they started a rebellion. Meanwhile, Stan, you found out that Darlene was hiding off on this island part-time to like... see if he'd come here? But she got stranded. Oh yeah, there's these _HUGE_ things surrounding all of us. But you all knew that.

"Stan and Darlene kinda became friends and then they were stuck in the- these caves, these 'The Caves' as Zeskit called them. Whoo, I am twisting my tongue. Oh yeah, some ass like kind of spread rumors about the place Darlene worked at to make it lose business and now she's been forced out, which is why she was getting a new place to hang out part-time but then got stranded. Darlene also had like these 'love potions' and she was taught by an ass how to mix them in to... m-mind control, yeah that's right. And with her mind control, she controlled Stan's body - no wait, shit, it's body control! She controlled Stan's body and before that they fought and got naked and they were in the caves then they left the caves - I mean Caves, it should be capitalized - wait, I forgot you don't speak Video Game Speech except Melody and Soos. Uh, when they left they found the conflict with us, but let's get back to that after I talk about Ford.

"Ford, I feel really sorry for you. You spent thirty years and like more trying to kill some talking triangle. And you did, but his friend is around. And on the island. And I became more better sort of _EVENTUALLY,_ Darlene became better too, but Pyronica isn't. At all. She and you also fought which ended with both of you being naked, and you ended up in these ruins called the Depths. But then you got out because she teleported you out and you ended up with us Artificial Army... business. Pyronica wanted to make a new portal to make a new Weirdmageddon because she's uncreative as _SHIT_ and just wanted to rehash everything before. I mean, be more original! *Hic.* Every time I come up with a new plan for Soos, it is a similar plan! I don't just hop in to the nearest animatronics and try to fight Soos with them! Well anyway, the copies first were like 'We'll build things for you,' and they were also punishing me because it's a mutiny, and then you guys all were so good and heroic and you saved me! But then we, including Pyronica, ran in to the Troll. He kidnapped us and we found out that we can make these powerful colored liquid things that's like blood but not really, it can be physical but you can't physically take it from our bodies without some symbol magic shit that we don't get.

"Well anyway, he ate that and he got these new powers and used them to build a building. Me, Soos, Melody, Darlene, and I (wait, didn't I already say 'Me?' Hahahahaha, me me me... my memory is shit when I am drunk) fought him while Stan and Ford fought Pyronica below. This time we were all still naked - including, maybe, the Troll? So it's not like we could get MORE naked unless we lost our skin which would just be gross. Anyway, in both fights the good guys won but the Troll called us out and now I feel bad and so does Darlene... hm...

"So that's about it! All of the important stu-"

.GIFfany immediately winced, and pinched her brow.

"Ow! Oh wow, I am so glad we can sober up so quickly! Why did I tell you everything we already knew?"

* * *

Ford's glasses (and the only article of his 'clothing') shined brightly as the torch light of the Depths reflected off of them, the man staring off in to a hall way with only the slightest hints of broken tiles glowing with purple in his way.

"Finally." He said. "Another piece to this island's mysteries."

A _wheezing_ group came running after him. Stan made it first, promptly collapsing against a random pillar while another one was positioned between his legs. He was followed by Darlene, who had to rub own her legs after making it to the end.

Finally, a flying moped drove through with a purple-skinned, jade green-haired copy carrying .GIFfany Prime, Melody, and Soos on the back. It hovered along side them. The latter three got off (with Melody giving her a deep, long kiss on the lips, breaking to briefly flick her nipple with her tongue), and the former shivered as she had to make the drive back alone.

Stan gave .GIFfany a look, and she replied with a smile.

"You two could have stayed back like we did and ask for a ride."

"Why did you run?" Melody asked the unofficial head of the small exploration team. "We're not in a rush. We even have a few more hours before the ship's ready."

"Sorry," Ford said, trying to mask a blush. "I just got a little excited about this."

"Because there's a naked woman down here?" Asked .GIFfany. "Well, not counting the three that are here right now."

"No, because it's an answer! I was not actively looking for a mystery on this island, but the mystery found me. Anything that implies I could find out _why_ we are all here means a much more satisfying escape."

He paused for a moment as he looked between his team, half of which were exhausted.

"Then again... let's not dig too deep."

"But the red woman might be someone trapped!" .GIFfany reasoned. "We should try to save her."

"She might also be evil." Ford said with a small, lighthearted laugh.

"No." Said a voice from the distance. "She is not."

.GIFfany, without actually looking to the source, guestured her arms there based on voice and replied. "See? The Lightning Cultist understands! Thank you, Lightning Cultist."

And then she realized what she just said, her lips having responded to the familiar sound before her brain did.

She slowly turned her head and _immediately_ lept off in the opposite direction after seeing her.

'Her' in that case being a figure - looking a bit shorter than Melody, cloaked completely in aqua robes. Said robes had some yellow lightning marks going down the sides and over her hood. Covering her face was a flat white mask with large, round, black 'eyes' (they appeared to have tiny holes in them for visibility), a blue spade symbol on the forehead that appeared to be melting, and a vertical yellow line that started slightly below the spade and kept going to the bottom of the mask.

"The melting spade!" Ford said, snapping his fingers. " _That_ was the last symbol!"

.GIFfany rushed between the masked figure and the rest of the group, sticking her arms out to the side. "I won't let you hurt my friends!" She said, shivering the entire time. "If signals could travel better, I would _so_ call for backup on you! Oh, where was the Wind Squad Captain? She was just here! She- she..."

"I am not here to attack you _yet..._ " the figure replied with the soft, yet stern voice of an older woman. "But I will say how annoyed I am that you figured out that aspect of your mystery faster than I would have wished."

"That voice..." Melody pondered that over, while .GIFfany seemed to be flat-out _refusing_ to let her cross her arms.

"Wait!" Darlene, on the other hand, came to a much quicker conclusion. "Aren't you that thing that I saw near the Mystery Mountain just before it got a bad press and closed? You would think rumors of a tourist attraction being satanic would bring a lot more people, but something about the way that was done just _killed_ publicity! Yeah, wait, that is you, isn't it? Or, at least, someone who dresses like that! And didn't I see someone with that outfit when that love potion guy was knocked out? Are you supposed to be the reason I got those love potions and that mixing instruction book?"

She nodded.

"Yes. I will explain all else later, but first..."

Raising a gloved hand, she took off the mask.

Behind that was a blonde woman who appeared to be as old as her voice indicated - small, regretful eyes met the group, with some noteworthy facial wrinkles that indicated that she wore no makeup. She did, however, seem to have some kind of markings - a tiny black 'X' was drawn on each cheek. Most noteworthy of all, however, was the faint pink branch-like pattern of scars that ran mostly along the middle of her face. She let the mask hit the ground and raised her arms up with a smile.

"Wait a minute!" Said Ford. "I thought I saw you at Gravity Falls just after Dipper and Mabel left! I remember a woman with a scar just like that writing in a book!"

"Me too!" Said Stan. "Like, a day after they left. We were about to pack up, and then we saw you just... _writing_ there."

Melody, on the other hand, was left completely speechless.

"Melody, I feel like if I should show myself, it should be to you! D-don't you remember me? The Great Zephieye? I know our relationship didn't end well, but-"

Aformentioned Mystery Shack staff member kept her stunned expression, slowly placed .GIFfany's left hand down, and began walking her way to the formerly-masked woman.

"Z-Zephieye?" She asked, still walking closer. "Zephieye Smith?"

The 'Cultist' nodded. "Yes. Finally, here in the flesh. It's been a while, hasn't it? Almost three years!"

Then Melody broke in to a full run, preparing a fist - she successfully struck Zephieye in the jaw, managing to knock her to the floor.

Gasping with a hand over her mouth, .GIFfany immediately ran towards Melody's side and tried to pull her back.

"Oh, hey." Said Soos. "I think I kind of saw her too. Well, not 'saw' saw. Yeah, my cousin Reggie said that his friend Dave knew a woman with these scars, who like, seemed to be interested in butts? I knew Melody's ex-girlfriend had scars too, but I didn't think they might be the same person. The rest of you all seem to know her, so... I guess I'm not, like, left out?"

"I knew her too." Pyronica said as she teleported in. "Yeah, she gave me this cool teleport skill and knew how to summon me to Earth with a special one-way portal that could only work on one person at a time. So... now I'm here."

She _still_ felt Ford glaring at her.

"And now I'm gone!"

The pink demoness zipped away yet again, putting the focus back on Zephieye. Who just stood back up - an action that made .GIFfany look like she was about to have a heart attack.

"Well... I see you still haven't forgiven me. And you are in _quite_ the relationship right now-"

"STAY AWAY FROM SOOS, YOU CREEP!" Both Melody and .GIFfany said at the same time. Although, obviously considering the prior context, they each said so in very different tones.

"...So," said Soos, "You two are kind of giving me vibes that this woman wasn't a good person. Is it really worse than I thought?"

"Don't say anything bad about her out loud!" Warned .GIFfany. "She could turn your eyes in to video game ants that will eat you from the inside out!"

"...Or she'll just teleport you from the shower to the middle of public." Said Melody. "Zephieye, that wasn't freaking funny! Neither were the rest of your 'pranks' when our relationship went downhill! You _still_ owe me that purse, and that watch was a family heirloom!"

"I needed to grow distant with you _somehow._ The 'jerk girlfriend' was just another one of my acts. But I _did_ take advantage of that to steal your money."

"Then what the _hell_ were you trying to do?"

"Once I confirmed that you were, in fact, the Keeper of Shadow, I needed to set a sequence of events so that you would be united with the other members of the Hexagram Emergency. That involved our breakup, and that involved me acting unpleasant. And trying to be a con artist."

"Yeah, no, you're a real con artist! I know you didn't fake stealing from me! And I _knew_ that you were just 'pretending to be obnoxious,' because you're a bad actor! I can even explain all of your tricks, right now!"

"I don't see what that has to do with acting, but go on."

Within one second, Melody took on a far more defeated look. She hung her head down in shame.

"It's... real magic. She knows the occult arts."

"Really?" Ford raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "How much? Have you encountered a one-eyed triangle in your dreams?"

"No, but I can say that I know more about the supernatural than you:"

She held a hand out, and from her robes flew a number of books that could not have possibly fit under there. They all floated, most of which formed lines behind her as they sat still and let the six process more details. Specifically, each of them was black, had a gold lightning bolt symbol on them, and those lightning bolts were all numbered. The highest numbered book was the one that did _not_ form one of the six orderly lines behind her - it instead floated in front of the palm of her hand, revealing a '66' on its cover.

"No, let's compare that to what _you_ wrote."

Perhaps more surprising than that was the next three books that came out - redder in color, and with a golden hand rather than a bolt. They were lined in front of the Lightning Cultist, again showing from lowest to highest: the original-deal journals.

Stan immediately guessed correctly:

"So wait, that Bottomless Pit thing dumped them all here?"

Zephieye nodded. "Zeskit read them as bathroom material. I just _barely_ convinced him not to use them as _post-_ bathroom material. This place is a common destination of whatever is thrown in that spatial anomaly. Especially if socks are lost in it."

"And that explains how he knows all the details we never even spoke about!" Stan snapped his fingers.

"Especially about me..." .GIFfany shuddered.

"See," Continued Stan, "I'm pretty good at this mystery solving thing, even after all these years and these months with a bunch of naked people!"

"Yeah, and for what you _had_ talked about, Zeskit is kind of a stalker. So am I, by the way. In fact, on the morning he crashed you, we both watched you together for a while. Then... well, we fought:"

* * *

 _So not long after Stanley was trapped in the Caves..._ explained Zephieye. _We witnessed that moment happen from around the non-volcanic major mountain._

The Troll paced around the forest, back and forth.

"Okay, here was our deal." He said. "Katjus and I ended up stranded here years ago through no fault of you, and you asked me to mess with the obsidian towers to make signals so that four people and two sexy monster chicks stalking them get over here. You'll help us get off this island, and... what exactly are you getting in return?"

"Power from the Hexagram Emergency and the Anti-Hex!" Zephieye whispered from behind her mask, as Ford disappeared to the thinning forest.

"Oh hey, that sounds pretty cool. Can I have it?"

"No."

The Troll narrowed his eyes at her.

"I knew it. I should have expected something from some feminist SJW with a made-up sexuality."

"I keep telling you! I'm just a homosexual!"

"Yeah, but you're giving me so many SJW vibes that I'm just expecting you to pull a lot more sexualities from your butt. I also kind of knew you would be a buzzkill in that way."

"In _what_ way? I never promised you those powers! In fact, I specifically tried to keep them a secret because I knew you would want to get them!"

"Well you guessed right! Let's duel! If I win, I get complete control over your 'little plan' of yours!"

"Did you just use both 'your' and 'of yours?'"

"If you win, well... do whatever you want because I'll be dead, because THIS IS A FIGHT TO THE DEATH!"

 _We battled after that. Long and hard, through the rest of the day and bleeding to the night. I kicked him in the air and he punched me around the mountain, and I used a light spell against him to keep him locked in. You may have seen us while we battled:_

Yes, they did. Except .GIFfany. That began with Ford and Pyronica witnessing them after the latter teleported the former out of the Depths. Following that, Stan and Darlene sighted them in the afternoon, and Soos and Melody dead in midnight after rushing away from the .GIFfanys.

* * *

" _That_ explains the glowing light we saw!" Said everyone opposing the Cultist, except .GIFfany. She clearly felt slightly offended at being left out, and tried to follow that up with a question on a completely different subject:

"He called you an 'SJW' too?"

"He does that to everyone, I think."

"I feel like we, together, asked this to _every_ strange woman who we found on this island," said Stan, "but why are you here now? And why did you pick _this_ time to show yourself?"

"Because I deliberately tried to seal off that tunnel so that getting to it would be as difficult as possible. It was intended to take _well_ over four months to dig that out. I did not want any of you to enter it, and I _certainly_ did not want the Fire Keeper of the Hexagram Emergency to activate the Red Guide."

She clapped her hands over her mouth, despite those words only getting confused tilted heads at most in response.

"Oh. Shoot."

"...Wait, that was red according to the Earth Squad, and I had the red glow. So, am I the 'Fire Keeper?'" Asked .GIFfany.

"Ooh, does that mean I'm a Keeper too?" Asked Soos. "If I am, then which one? Can my element be Ice? Or, no, Fixing, because I feel that that fits my character arc better? What do you mean by **Hex** agram Emergency. Counting Pyronica, there's seven of us you wanted to show up here. Is it because Pyronica is gone right now?"

The Cultist calmly explained: "Pyronica is part of something _slightly_ different. It's still called the Hexagram Emergency, but she's in a... special, complicated 'other slot' with that. The Anti-Hex." She shook her head. "Wait, it should be none of your business! Just enjoy spending the rest of your lives on this island, going anywhere you want except the path of the 'Boundary Guardians' as you named them. Oh, and this spot. Those are the only two forbidden places."

"What do you mean, 'rest of our lives?'" Stan asked as he tried to march past .GIFfany. She was _surprisingly_ good at dashing to make sure her limbs kept the rest of the five back. "We're leaving _tomorrow morning!_ We'd leave _tonight,_ but we want to fight those things in the day! That ship is going to be up and running, and we _will_ make it back home!"

"That's not what the destiny prophecy says." The Cultist replied coldly. "I am not even trying to fight your fate, and neither should you. It says that the colored six will remain here. I am also aware that a sorceress who controls electronics at her fingertips is hinted to die... it is unlikely, but I might fit that description, especially if you subscribe by the theory that the organ-feasting cave-dweller was Zeskit and not Darlene. But I do not believe that theory. _If_ I did, I would still accept my fated death as long as it meant serving the True Gods."

"What do you mean by 'destiny?'" Ford asked. "The Zodiac was _also_ a 'destiny.' But that ended up being useless. All because I refused to hold hands with my brother."

"No, don't beat yourself over that..." said Stan. " _I_ was the one who-"

"Wait..." Zephieye pondered his words more than he thought she would. "What the hell is the Zodiac?"

Ford blinked.

"Oh. I just assumed... you seemed to know a lot about our lives, so you would have known about the Zodiac."

"Mmmm... not really. I treaded _very_ carefully when Weirdmageddon hit and I spent most of that time just kind of watching for Pyronica. And studying .GIFfany's arcade cabinet."

"Rumble's." .GIFfany corrected. "It was his at first."

"Right, right, that's what you'll think." Zephieye replied as though _she_ was the one doing the correcting. "I mean, it's not _incorrect,_ but we can agree to disagree. Can we?"

"...Not really. It was a _Fight Fighters_ cabinet. I transferred my data over there."

The Lightning Cultist took a step forward, and just like that the group could _feel_ .GIFfany's body fill with regret for ever speaking against her.

She put her mask back on.

" _You should have clearly been the star of the game. It was yours from the beginning, .GIFfany. Don't you understand? It was yours... yours... YOURS!_ Just like _THESE VERY RUINS!_ 'The Depths?' What kind of right mind did Pyronica have to call this place that? These are... the Ruins of the Fire Keeper! This whole damn place was built on the grounds to worship _YOU!_ Have you no longer been able to recognize when someone sees your greatness?! Your beauty?! Your _**BODY?!**_ "

"Yeah," said Melody, "she kind of acted like this when I broke up with her. Do you see why I don't like her?"

.GIFfany looked like she was freezing to death at that point, despite the volcanic air around them.

"It is me you want! Me to... not touch that... red thing? Leave the others alone... I'll... stay away from them while I go do the thing you don't want me to! I'll touch that object in that room my archaeologists uncovered!"

She belted off down the excavated tunnel, but not before casting a wall of pink electricity between the other five and the Cultist.

".GIFfany, wait!" Soos cried out. "I- uh-"

Zephieye held a single left hand towards that wall, which immediately destroyed it.

" **AHKILLKAH FLA-OHM!** " She shouted, her voice playing along with at least three other, deeper voices.

Her call of black speech caused a series of papers to fly from her same sleeve, each of them having one thing drawn on them: a large, black X. Flooding out in endless supply, these sheets seemingly slapped themselves on nothing, forming a half-cylinder overall that kept them clung to the wall.

"Stay here." She said. "I'll go after the Fire Keeper."

She rose the right hand, all while .GIFfany appeared to have past the point one-fourth of a way between their area and the 'chamber' that was excavated. She continued running down the extremely long hall, darting to get as far from the Cultist as possible.

" **I call upon the Bleeding Spade the Direction to Hell the Eternal Hexagram and the X of Silence. Evoke what a mortal being such as myself can be granted, limited as the power shall be, without the proper destiny flowing through my veins. NZYVO FLAA'THDIN!** "

And then, things went dim.

* * *

The dimming was not limited to that particular chamber. Far above, where the .GIFfany army had just been continuing the celebration. One group of copies even preparing a 'CONGRATULATIONS ON THE FIND' cake.

Black mist began shrouded the entirety of Fanservice Island, and the Moon began to shine red.

Weapons Squad Captain, Copy #9, looked towards this bleeding moon with a grimace.

Everyone else had their lower lip tremble.

"I knew it was too good to be true..." 9 said under her breath. "That we would be leaving the island without _SOME_ catch... still, I must sound the alarm immediately."

She took out her inventory - full of a number of slots so large that the full inventory stretched out past the boundries of the place - and took out a remote device with a single, giant red button.

Pressing it sent a signal to all .GIFfany-made electronics around the island, aside from those blocked by the might of the Depths/red temple ruins. And each of them belted the following message:

 _THE LIGHTNING CULTIST HAS BEEN SPOTTED. WE HAVE A CODE ELECTRIC BLUE, GATES OF EDEN APOCALYPTIC SCENARIO. .GIFFANY COPIES, TURN TO DOWNTOWN AND ENTER COMBAT FORM FIBONACCI-144 OMEGA. ALL NON- .GIFFANY PERSONA, HEAD TO THE NEAREST TRANSPORT TO THE CENTER OF THE DOWNTOWN BOMB SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT, THE LIGHTNING CULTIST HAS BEEN SPOTTED. WE HAVE A CODE ELECTRIC BLUE, GATES OF EDEN APOCALYPTIC..._

9 found herself surrounded by a select group of copies - the other squad captains.

"9, we can't find them!" Cried one with green hair and pink skin. The Plant Squad Captain, 2222222, the same one that had noticed and called out Pyronica just before Soos and Ford's reunion. "Prime, the humans, or Darlene!"

"The Earth Squad Captain directed them to some findings in the Depths. We must head there immediately!"

"What about the non-captains?" Asked the one leader with the pure blue hair.

"Our original plan was that we put our lives on the line first, trying damn well to stop that behemoth. And when we fell, they would **try** exhausting her to death. This is technically part of the original plan, just that we will be doing some scouting first. In order to have them be protected by us at Downtown's shelter."

The others nodded.

* * *

As Zephieye turned her way towards .GIFfany's direction, the eye holes of her mask _somehow_ got angular tops - slanting down at the target, forming more of a negative glare than a blank look.

.GIFfany struck her with a series of increasingly large pink bolts as she ran, but these appeared to do nothing to her at all.

Then the Cultist flicked her hand, sending a wave of pure force that knocked .GIFfany to the floor.

She was close enough to see the red object the copies were talking about - it was indeed some sort of large woman, nude, curled up in a crystal. She then looked up to see the nude portrait the others must have been talking about, with a blanket put over just about the whole lower half. .GIFfany also noticed a room off to the side. One with... some kind of colorful circles?

Her sight-seeing came to an abrupt end with the Cultist teleported right on top of her, planting a foot to her head to pin her to the ground. .GIFfany coughed out blood once that happened.

"Why _did_ you leave me, anyway?" Asked Zephieye. "We could have lasted in the new world together! And yet you... you... _WHAT WOULD YOU EVEN CALL WHAT YOU DID?_ "

"I changed..." .GIFfany squeaked out.

"What was that? I'm sorry, my hearing isn't as good as it used to-"

.GIFfany sent more electricity to her foot. That attacked managed to at least lighten the pressure.

"I SAID, I FUCKING _CHANGED!_ "

.GIFfany brought herself to a full stand, practically towering over her ex-worshipper even after she recovered from stumbling back a short distance.

"Well. What are you going to do now? You already know that I am better than you in every way, especially in terms of power. And wisdom, of course, I _do_ have great intellect and a mastery of _La Español._ "

.GIFfany stood absolutely still, trying to look her opponent in the mask eye-hole.

Which served as a better surprise when she immediately side-lept to the glowing crystal-bubble, firmly placing a palm on it. From there, a crack occured on the sphere, brightly glowing red light shining forth from it. Right after she touched it, her butt began to turn a bright red, staying that way.

"Oh." Said the Cultist. "Well. I will see you later, then. I am _still_ trying to find Yank Yill's mask... it _should_ still be around Gravity Falls, that _was_ where I was looking these four months..."

She disappeared in a bright flash of light, her custom dimming fog quickly dispersed, and the set of papers around the others vanished. Naturally, as the cracks and the glowing began to spread, said 'others' rushed over to where .GIFfany stood. Just as the sphere seemed as though it was about to break completely, Stan, Melody, Soos, Darlene, and Ford all finally made it to the room after their own long jogs.

And then it burst. Stan did not get to see that action, as he found some mask in the adjacent room, grabbing that.

Blinding light filled twelve eyes after that, the group trying their hardest to shield their vision even though that shine died down quickly. In its place lied the floating woman - still red in color, and slightly moving away from her curled-up position. Her eyes opened, a smirk formed on her face, and all the observers could _swear_ that she was slightly growing in size.

"Free..." she said, starting to spin in the air.

"Finally, I AM _FREE!_ "

Upon saying that, the woman flung her arms up and her legs down, standing at a size that could easily rival a one-story house. What caught the group's eyes as well was her downright _enormous_ (even with scale being considered) bust - her breasts jiggled for a few moments as she enjoyed aformentioned freedom, greeting the group with firm ruby nipples.

Oh, yeah, the rest of her body. Her back-length hair moved around freely and she smiled at the group as her red eyes locked on them, said hair swaying alongside a curve-filled body with a narrow waist. Her crotch appeared to be covered by a perpetual red flame, flickering teasingly as the air-movements caused by her spin appeared to come _so close_ to extinguishing the divine fire hiding her divine(?) genitalia. As she continued spinning in the air, bare feet barely floating above the ground, she happened to end up bending over as a stretch once her ass was in front of the gang. And there it was: Another utterly massive (again, even going by scale) bubble butt filled the eyes of all who witnessed, jiggling and bouncing as though she was continued stretching out.

Then she turned back to face the group.

"Oh! I see you are all bare too." Said the red giant. "Great! Just like the Hexagram Emergy wanted. So I guess that contrivance was already in place? Don't worry, I am not going to hurt you... Now, which one of you freed me?"

.GIFfany had the same jaw-dropped blank stare as the rest of them. With some reluctance and _no_ words being formed in her head, she raised her hand.

"If you don't mind, will you kindly turn around for me?"

.GIFfany slowly stepped to do a 180, and that was when she realized that her ass was recolored.

"Ah... even if they were not red by my presence, I could still tell that you have buttocks that could pass for the Fire Keeper." She placed a hand on her chin as she observed the posterior. "Those large cheeks, that bubbly shape, the Y-shaped crack... it's a perfect match!"

"Well... I was designed with those proportions in mind..." .GIFfany answered. "So I can not take _all_ of the credit..."

"So, like, who are you?" Asked Soos. "Some kind of Butt God?"

"Oh, sorry for not introducing myself sooner!" She took herself aback and clasped her hands together over her mouth. "I am one of the... 'Sage-Guides,' I believe we were called! Long ago, the six of us fought against a force only known as the Anti-Sage, which lasted-"

"It's the Lightning Cultist!" Cried the Weapons Squad Captain, who as the group turned around had noticed was standing right by the entrance to the room, other squad captain .GIFfanys with her. The rest of them still trembled - except the Fire Squad Captain. After seeing the red giantess, she was grinning like an idiot for a reason that would make more sense if you knew that these two are both technically inspired by the same character. Just taken in different directions. "She... somehow became much larger and is actually showing skin and looks _way_ more buxom than I was expecting under the robes, but I know it's her!"

"No, she is not the Lightning Cultist!" .GIFfany Prime cried in defense. "She is..."

"Just call me the Red Sage-Guide for now." The giantess finished for her. "Anyway, as I was saying- well, let me show you. Too."

Another flash occured, and the vision of all of them briefly went red, before going black.

* * *

 _I am one of the Sage-Guides._

In the minds of everyone present, something appeared before them. Some kind of... painting-like image. Faint, a bit hard to discern. Made in simple shapes and scribbles together, all on a faded yellow background. Six humanoids - red, yellow, blue, purple, orange, and green - all faced against one giant, black-colored shadowy figure. Said shady figure was within what appeared to be a golden triangular building of sorts.

 _Long ago, the six of us fought against a force only known as the Anti-Sage, which lasted for four months. We each came from a state unknown even to us, just beings that could last through the centuries. The Anti-Sage wanted to link your world with a place called the Nightmare Realm, which would have only meant disaster for the planet and the reality it was tied to. So we acted to fight against her and her weirdness._

They then saw the black figure in the middle of series of matching swirls, pulling the six in.

 _We managed to defeat her by sealing her in a bubble that was banished to the depths of the Nightmare Realm, impossible to open by anyone. Or so we thought. She had two additional tricks that we were not expecting. She had already chosen a being within one of the alternate dimensions, someone she could trust to be at least friends with someone clever, to set her free with a specific counter-spell unique to that sector of conciousness. A person of her chosing, that could inherit some of her powers when all is set just right and she has the correct material. Said person needed to have a butt like her own, however. The other trick was that she sealed us in bubbles and banished us to different parts of the Earth. It was there that we began to learn of our talents._

A map of the planet in faded brown. There was a red dot over by a spot where the Pacific, Indian, and Southern Oceans met; a green one over in what would be Oregon; a blue dot by the Atlantic; an orange dot somewhere around north Africa, a purple dot slightly north of the green one; and a yellow dot towards the far east of Russia.

 _All we could do was pick randomly. We did not have anywhere near the same control that the Anti-Sage had over her ability to assign herself, so at best we could set chance to pick for us. Our powers had also subconciously held an effect on this reality: people from around the world began doing things in our names. Some became seers, writing down prophecies that may or may not turn out to be true regarding the fate of the Keepers and the beings they opposed. Many infused weirdness in to material to build temples - ultimately, six color-coded temples were apparently made in our honor across the world. The Anti-Sage apparently had one as well. But these temples had the effect of drawing more weirdness. We could all sense each-other slightly - from our sensations, we could tell that the green temple was build in the deep underground forest beneath a crashed alien spaceship, an that ship in turn just drew even more weirdness to there than any of the other sites. That place, from what I gather from communicating with the Green Sage-Guide and his absorbtion of words from the outside world, is known as Gravity Falls. You may have heard of it._

The vague outlines of two babies. One colored in green. The other, blue.

 _It was only around seventy years ago that the first glimmer of hope hit us: the Keepers of Water and Wind were finally born. Now, all we could have done was hope that our probability-manipulation would guide them to save us. The Anti-Sage's own 'Keeper' was showing signs of making her way towards finding out that the Anti-Sage exists, and that she is the one to free her. Should that happen, all realities may perish._

 _But then the spawns continued! Soul! Light! Dark! Fire! Three of them born, one of them created. We do not know where most of them are right now, but I can tell you that the woman with pink hair is, in fact, the Fire Keeper._

* * *

Their "normal" vision returned. Everyone's jaws were dropped, except Soos (who was just smiling) and the red-headed captain (who was _still_ grinning).

"Oh, okay." Said Soos. "Standard adventure stuff. We're chosen ones, gotta beat a demon that's sealed up, and I'm pretty sure Pyronica is, like, the Anti-Sage Keeper."

It took some time for Ford to register what everyone just said. "Yes... we had fought against someone who managed to harness some color-coded liquids from us. .GIFfany's over there was red. Just like the glow of her- uh..."

Soos nodded. "Pyronica is like this big pink demon woman, and when that guy took the stuff from her, it was black. Also, we experimented around with some berries and they looked like the colors you just showed us. Mine was yellow. Call me Soos, by the way. Nice to meet you."

The Guide finally stopped smiling at that, playing around with her now-folded hands a little before she resumed speaking:

"That explains why you are _all_ naked, if you are all of the other Keepers. Well then. This adventure... moved on faster than I was expecting." She chuckled a little. "That is a good thing. You need to work fast to defeat the Anti-Sage's picked Keeper."

"What does being a Keeper have to do with us being naked?" Asked .GIFfany. "We first became naked after a lot of events conspired for that to happen. And then we stayed naked over the four months because of these creatures that will eat us if they take enough clothing."

"Part of the 'fate' element out of our control is that your buttocks will be exposed due to contrivance the closer all of you are to following your call to action, as a mild side-effect."

"' _MILD?!_ '" Shouted Stan. But the Red Sage-Guide did not answer him:

"It is also the central source of your hidden power. The rest of your clothes just happened to go as a 'side-effect...' to the other kind of side-effect that is not _really_ a side-effect since exposing your rears to the open world helps them 'breathe' and that helps you get more powr? Anyway, if you ran around with outfits that exposed your backsides specifically, that may not happen. Although I can't really say anything about the creatures..."

 _That_ seemed to have offended Melody.

"So wait!" She cried out. "I'm, like, some kind of goddess reincarnation and _because of that_ I'm forced to go naked for the whole adventure?! Or, butt-out for the adventure. But..." She shrank back and blushed. "I'm kind of more ashamed of my butt than any other part of me."

The Red Guide nodded solemnly.

"So do you know anything about those giant beasts that are circling the island?" Asked Stan. "We made this huge ship and now we're powering it up to blast those things out of our lives."

"Giant beasts?" She looked roughly as confused at that statement as the group was upon seeing her debut. "...No, I do not know what you are talking about. The last worshippers who visited this temple made no mention of them, and that was only six months ago. But yes, this place, from what I sensed of my near-surroundings, should be the place for building a powerful weapon ship. All of the other temples, especially the black one, could as well. I... kind of want to look at the giants you are talking about. In fact, this island used to be a popular place for people to come in _and_ leave.

"...Well, all I can really do at this point is join you and give you additional information. And direct you: near this room should be... um, a room with teleporters linking you to other such temples. In fact, four months ago, some teenagers came in here from the green temple. We-"

She looked over at the room that, previously, the others only caught glimpses of as they focused their attention to the sealed giantess instead. Said room... had six cirular 'pads' of sort on the ground. One orange, one yellow- you already know the colors by now and it's the _exact same room_ seen in the Intermission. Stan was even already there, and he picked up some kind of mask thing covered in dust.

Before anyone asks, the sphere on the shelf was no longer glowing.

"Oh. _Oh._ I'm sorry, but there is not enough of the right kind of power here. But I _do_ sense a power source surrounding the very edges of this island... if you could get it. But first, let me get in to a form where I can easily get out of this room:"

She turned in to red mist, which then made its way on to and sank down in the crack of .GIFfany's ass.

"Oh, and one last thing..." The Guide's voice was heard, of course coming from the direction of the AI's rounded posterior. Which, by the way, started losing its red look.

Embers appeared around her, then collected in front of her. One burst of flames from the collection followed, and a sword roughly the mighty height of .GIFfany herself appeared from the explosion after the fire cleared. Red, glowing, and with a soft warmness to it. She gripped the handle, and its entire blade was set ablaze. Yet she herself felt no burning heat.

 **YOU GOT THE FIRE KEEPER'S BLADE!**

 **A legendary weapon that was hidden within the cracks of Earth. Set foes ablaze with a single swing! Powered by magic and propane.**

"Now, didn't you say something about a finished ship out of here?" Continued the Red Guide. "You should probably get to that now. Oh! But wait, first: Please use whatever builder... telekinesis strength to take the Transport Room - that is the one with the pads that warp to the other temples - and add it to the ship too. That way, when you get sources of power for the room, you may enter the chambers with the other Guides directly instead of having to seek out the temples themselves."

For a while, nobody really moved or said anything else, despite all signs pointing to making it back to the beach.

Then Soos, who had been just staring at the sword, said something right when .GIFfany was about to stash it in her inventory.

"Hey, can I like, touch it?"

"That would be a very bad idea!" Replied the voice of the Red Sage-Guide, answering so that .GIFfany didn't have to guess.

"What? Why?"

"The Keeper Blades are erm... _tuned_ to send a powerful attack to those that were not chosen to hold them. Sorry, we _really_ didn't plan that ahead of time. In her case, her sword would burn anyone but herself."

"Including her own creations, such as us?" Asked 9.

"Biological relatives will be affected too." The Guide replied. "So, I know that the Water and Wind Keepers are twins. If they grab the other's sword, they will be hurt. But as for you... well, while you are giving off a _similar_ but _weaker_ vibe as .GIFfany over here - something highly unusual, even for clones, maybe you were just extensions of destiny so to speak - you will certainly be burned yourselves."

* * *

Dear _boy,_ between the Lightning Cultist and the sudden Sage-Guide thing, the group was understandably shaken.

Once 9 was out and thus could send a signal without the Depths - er, Red Temple - blocking it, she whipped out a different radio. That one looked like the other, but had 'Thank FUCK' written on its considerably smaller, pink button.

The message it sent was the following:

 _The Cultist is gone for the time being. Everyone, you may return to your homes._

Following that, various colorful sparks were seen dancing along the wires that linked around different spots of the island, and a number of virtual women _exploded_ out of them to embrace the band of six main heroes and their army of captains in a large hug.

Melody did not want to admit that she recognized the redhead that spoke then as the same one who kind of coughed back when she distracted the spank-line with her butt. This .GIFfany still even had what looked to be blood by her feet.

...The ones that serve under the Meat Squad Captain assume that their 'players' have _odd_ tastes.

And those assumptions are, ehrm, not assumptions. They're facts drawn out four months ago back before the Great "OH, FOR _FUCK'S_ SAKE," when Melody was asked her opinion on more 'Blood Ritual-y Ladies.' It slipped, Meat Captain over heard that, and the rest was history.

Oh, right. Let's stop side-tracking this with stories (that's Soos' job, with his new Adventures of Dave). This is what she had said:

"We are so glad you are safe! Captain, what happened? Did she sting? You all look fine... I was ready to put on my sea-sailor gear and follow you to the end myself!"

"Uh," 9 replied, "Ask Prime and the not-... well, not virtual women. They know the answer."

Stan shrugged. "Some crazy chick with a mask me and my brother saw ages ago was down there. She said something about not wanting .GIFfany to touch that thing your Earth Group uncovered. But she did it anyway and the one with the mask backed off. Turns out it was a giant naked red woman that gave her and sword and told us all we have, like, hidden god powers."

"Most of it was stuff I already kinda figured out." Soos said by dismissing his hand. "By the way, if she was listing us by our ages in reverse order back there, I think that makes me the Light Keeper or something. I know I'm older than .GIFfany and Melody. Barely, though."

"That 'crazy chick' was none other than the Lightning Cultist!" Said 9.

"Yeah," Stan replied, "Melody told me the gist."

"If you did not hear of it from .GIFfany, you don't know the full extend of her death throe-inducing horr- wait. Melody, you knew her too?"

"I found that she's the same person as my magician ex-girlfriend." Said Mystery Shack staff member replied with a shrug. Blood Foot-Copy had her arms wrapped around Melody's neck, rubbing her head along her hair with a sorrowful look.

"Well..." 9 took a deep breath in. "You need to hear of the story from one of _us,_ as we have full memories of her at full combat. To put it **lightly,** she has telekinesis strong enough to lift the entirety of Gravity Falls with no effort, spells that can counter any of the spells we can think of ever _after_ our four months of supernatural research here, her _own_ spells... well, Soos told me he was caught in a zombie invasion once back at Gravity Falls. Soos, it's like that, but worse. And she wears a lot of powerful rubber that can block even our most powerful concentrated lightning strikes."

"So are you telling me that your weakness is rubber?" Soos asked.

" _Anti-gif_ rubber." Corrected 9. "Or, something similar to it, since anti-gif rubber is actually an invention by Antifire Squad Captain .GIFfany Number 631019 over there."

She pointed to that white-haired, silent copy that went with Ford on his ride down the volcan-

Do you want me to just drop the number/Squad Captain gimmick and go with nicknames ala _run:gifocalypse_? How would you feel if I said that was Professor Burrda? And 9's obviously Dove, I just swapped her and Prime's numbers to fit with this fic's lore. FYI Blood-Foot is new and basically like a .GIFfany-ized version of/kind of cameo of this one _Binding of Isaac_ modder's OC, Moira (the old design). I hope the creator of that character doesn't mind this. If he does I'll change the design to, like, maybe a .GIFfany version of the Burger King. The joke still kinda works because in the mod she gives you an item where a mini-her follows you and the Burger King is like a follower too.

That's the second time talking about that character took me off-topic. Anyway:

She waved. The Antifire Captain, that is.

"It's just that LC has something similar."

"And better..." the Antifire Captain said under her breath.

By that point, largely thanks to the gigantic copies, Ford could not see anything but .GIFfanys, with the exception of the night sky _directly_ above him (as for directly below, tiny copies were hugging his feet).

"We should rest, then." He said, intending to get this hug-party off of him. It didn't work. "And prepare for our journey tomorrow. If we take care of the Boundary Guardians tomorrow morning, that at least gives us the entire world to prepare for the Lightning Cultist after that, and Pyronica after _that._ "

"Are you sure we should be worrying about Pyronica right now?" .GIFfany asked. "I mean... we should focus on the ship, to destroy the Boundary Guardians _and_ the Cultist. Whichever order we end up fighting them, we need to fight them soon."

"I'm being generous to the Lightning Cultist by even prioritizing her above Pyronica. That demon is someone who works under Bill. She _must_ be stopped too, and I will not let some random lunatic in a mask distract me."

.GIFfany gasped.

"Don't insult her like that! She could be listening! She _was_ listening before..."

* * *

Maybe think of this as a "bonus?" It's still canon (part of EFFI's canon, obviously not part of the canon of _Gravity Falls_ ) and it might clear up some things.

 _Two days after landing on Fanservice Island. (AKA a few hours after the end of Chaper 6.)_

.GIFfany's eyes scanned Soos and Melody standing by the sand as she kept one hand glued to her hips, and another trembling hand holding on to a yellow can of beer (the Wind Squad Captain _**insisted**_ on that can design, and _**insisted**_ on using cans).

"So you said you wanted to say something important?" Soos asked. "What is it?"

She took another, but last of that set, deep breath in. Then out.

"I want to apologize."

"Oh, just that?" He asked. She nodded regretfully. "That's fine!"

"No, I do not think you understand. I... I did _terrible_ things. Zeskit may have been a creepy pervert, but even he was right about that."

"I thought we took care of that last night..." Was Melody's thought on the subject matter.

"We didn't - I - maybe you are both too innocent to understand."

Melody blushed. ".GIFfany, I erm, thought we made it _perfectly_ clear that I am not 'innocent' when it comes to anything."

"...The point is, I am a changed woman. And starting right now, I want to be more open about myself. So..." she took a deep breath in. "I will keep no more secrets. I will not try to deceive you any more. If you have a question, ask it, and I will answer honestly."

.GIFfany exhaled and began to take a sip of her can, an action she would regret considering the first question she was given after making that announcement:

"So, do you wanna, like, have sex with me?" Soos asked.

.GIFfany could not spit out the faux-Alamo Beer fast enough, and choked a little on some remnants. Thinking quickly, the very man that choked her went up and patted her on the back, clearing everything out.

"Wh-where the fuck did _that_ come from?" She gasped, face beet red.

"Well, once I got confimation that you weren't trying to eat Melody, everything after that was obvious. I sleuthed out some signs and how you always seemed wet like Melody is. Also, you really like her butt. And then there was your reunion with 9, where it seemed like you were trying to blow some steam since you must have confused us of saving until marriage with how I feel with someone not-real like you. But you still kind of like me, right?"

"Yes? Yes. Of course I do. Well, the old me did not _like_ you, she was _obsessed_ with you, but... uh... Soos, to be completely honest, I did not even know that you knew what sex _was_ until just now."

He laughed. "You thought I never had the talk? My Abuelita has this _crazy_ way of explaining things, and ever since I got it perfectly!"

"And you- you're suddenly in to that?"

The owner of the sponge Melody used back in Chapter 2, the red-skinned, cyan-haired .GIFfany instance, walked over to them.

"Excuse me, if I may intervene!" She said. "Uh, duh! What, he's a dude into gals on an island filled with naked, curvy women who are trying to seduce his girlfriend! You don't think he feels just a _tiny_ bit pent up? Soos, correct me if I'm wrong: Right now, you feel like the unholy wrath of Mother Nature herself is twisting your balls with a wrench, screaming in your ear to ejaculate."

.GIFfany gasped. "Soap Squad Captain! .GIFfany Number 597278, sort of since you are not me!"

"What? It's true, right? I mean, that's how I felt when Melody toggled the custom options and gave me a masculine body."

"Okay! But guys! What happened to saving until you were married!"

"Actually," said Melody, "we both agreed that that applies to real people. And you call yourselves computer programs."

"No!" Prime's eyes darted around in horror. "No no no no no no no _we are real!_ Look at us! Flesh and blood! Three dimensions! Even back when we were one computer program, we could still think and move around, I-I-I-I might think that that counts as being 'real' since we have... uh, b-brains! But now look! Look!"

She made a guestured around her entire body - then her eyes locked between a flushing Soos trying to hide his crotch, and she knew exactly why.

"I mean maybe you shouldn't look! Um, focus on your own adorable relationship right now. You should _really_ think about getting married."

"By who, though?" Soos asked. "Are you registered? And you can't do it online; our signal gets jammed outside the island. The only way to communicate with the outside world is to get up to the highest obsidian fan with that thing Ford brought, but now it's missing."

"I hope you can figure it out because this... probably? Isn't healthy."

The Soap Squad Captain patted Soos's shoulder. Then used her other hand on Melody's. "You two can always play _my_ 'strong sexual content' if you want to. Just keep 'crude humor,' 'blood and gore,' and 'suggestive lyrics' out of it. ...I don't like hearing bad love songs. Unless it's from the Sound Squad Captain."

"Wait, why me?" Asked Melody. "I thought we were just talking about Soos."

The tealhead smirked.

" _Come on, Melody._ " She replied. "It's _you._ "

She looked off to the side in defeat.

"So is that a no on the sex?" Asked Soos.

"Yes!" .GIFfany replied _vehemently._

"It's a yes then?"

"I mean... yes, it's a no!"

* * *

 _Three days after landing on Fanservice Island._

.GIFfany made a silent note to curse the odd humidity and heat of the island as she started to wake up from within the giant sleeping bag the Artificial Army made for the group (not literally; it's the same 'bed of women' trick from before). Although those urges to swear had died down considerably after she saw Soos's face in the morning.

He looked at her nervously, as though he was guilty of something, but considering her own track record, she pushed that thought to the side.

"I slept well..." she said. "And I think I feel a little better about everything that happened two days ago. I will continue my honesty: seeing our conversation yesterday, I would normally feel like hiding anything that might give you erotic thoughts. But I can safetly say that I had a _very_ sensual dream last night. It started at a university campus, but then it turned to an adventure in a thick, heavy swamp. I might have even moaned a little in my sleep."

"I'm pretty sure I heard those moans and my body just kind of gave up after three and a half weeks of waiting."

She had quite a few questions about that (mostly regarding his use of the term ' _three and a half weeks_ '), but knew the general direction he was going. So she asked:

"Three and a half weeks? When was the last time you-"

Then she got a grasp of the _scale_ of her warmth and humidity. And moved back a little. Then, she looked at her body and found most of it coated in white.

"Holy shit, Soos! How... how is it even _possible_ for a human to have... so much?!"

She paused and looked down further. Then her eyes got wider.

"Are you... _still_...?"

"Yes." He sunk his head back, clapping both hands on his completely pinkened face.

"Okay, that's it. I'm going to ask the others if they can marry you two."

Ah, 'two.' Yes, her exclamation managed to wake Melody up. Once .GIFfany was done talking and prepared to slip her creamed body out of bed, Melody yawned and looked at the pair.

"What's going o-"

She then saw Soos's repaint and instantly went silent.

"Melody, pray that you are not already pregnant." Was all Prime said to her before going to wash off.

* * *

"Stan!" .GIFfany asked to aformentioned man running over to him in the beach after barely cleaning herself off, "Are you legally able to wed people?"

Stan paused in heavy reluctance.

"You're not some kind of weird undercover cop that pretended to murder everyone months ago, right? Because um, I don't _think_ I ever got-"

She began to take off running again, which allowed Stan to get a better look at her other side.

"Hey, what's that white stuff on your right heel?"

"Oh, just some milk that spilled on me while the Meat Squad tried milking one of the native pigs!"

Hey, she said she wouldn't lie to _Soos or Melody._

She hid behind a tree, took it with her finger, and licked it up, shuddering in disgust.

"I hate this succubus-like, eats- _those_ -fluids part of our physical forms. ...Who am I kidding, _I love it._ "

* * *

"Ford!" .GIFfany asked to aformentioned researcher as he continued twisting a pair of rounded nuts of the red ship with a giant wrench. Thanks to her good computer memory of even throw-away lines, that action got .GIFfany to shudder a little. "Are you legally able to wed people?"

Ford turned his head towards her.

"Well, no... but I do appreciate that more and more of you are learning my actual nickname. The Fire Squad Captain was the first to get it. Then you got it, after just calling me 'Five' once."

"I know, that is not part of becoming a new me, but I have gotten to know a little of you..."

"Why did you ask? I can probably arrange something using some of the oddities I found in the region."

"Well... Soos and Melody _really_ want to get married, _really_ badly."

"Hm. Well, I can't say I understand the love of the engaged too well, but I think I overheard Darlene telling the Wind Squad Captain something about being an officiant to marry her with Hank Hill. That part was a joke, but I think she was being honest about being able to marry people."

.GIFfany sighed in relief.

"Thank you. I already asked Stan. I was running out of options."

"Say, if you don't mind me asking... what is that white stuff behind your ear? The left one. Was it always there?"

She flushed.

"Milk." She replied.

"Ah." He laughed a little. "Those pigs, huh? I swear, if not for their mundane characteristics compared to most of the other creatures here, I'd accuse them of being part of the wave of odd beings."

She tried to laugh that off too as she snuck away from him.

* * *

"Dian!" .GIFfany asked not to the Poison Squad Captain, but to Darlene, who had just started posing on her stomach so that the Stan twins could take a better look at her tattoo. Both of them were sketching their own versions of the arrow. "Ford said you were able to legally wed people. Is that true?"

She chuckled in response. " _Yes,_ I did it as part of... well, it was all a big scam. But hey, I guess Soos and Melody want to finally get married now?"

"...Kind of."

"Isn't that sweet? Oh, by the way, my name is Darlene, and as punishment for getting it wrong, I'm gonna be blunt and tell these two gentlemen that you have some semen in your cleavage."

* * *

"I now pronounce you husband and wife!" Darlene said at the erected altar, finally folding up the long script she had with her.

Just when Soos and Melody kissed before her, 9 went up to them and cleared her throat.

"You _do_ realize that Fanservice Island is technically located on international waters, meaning that your marraige is null and void."

"We're married in front of God, and that's what matters." Said Soos, clanking a glass of faux-Pit Cola to Melody's glass of wine.

"Wait," His new wife said with a smirk. "You still believe in the 'traditional' God after seeing .GIFfany's magic?"

"Well yeah. Why not?"

"Well uh... nevermind."

Of course, most of the seats in the aisle were filled with the Artificial Army, and the Soap Squad Captain just _had_ to sit next to where .GIFfany was, a fact that was reminded to the latter after they clapped.

"I think _you_ should be the woman in white." Said the soap-themed leader with a grin.

"You are so lucky I swore off killing..." Prime replied with the same grin.

 _Of course_ the Fire Squad Captain was seated on the opposite side of her, and she remarked with a matching grin: "Suddenly I'm looking pretty harmless troll-wise, huh?" Which is more of a _run:gifocalypse_ joke considering how little those two have interacted with one-another.

In another section, the same distance from the wedded couple, Stan asked to his brother during the claps: "I don't even know what's going on, and most of me doesn't want to know."

Ford nodded. "And I agree. The mystery of why they chose this date, and why Darlene got registered online, should remain burried."

SQEI, MIRSG, EVRE, SZFY, ENXFR, OLES, OYU MZDG QZTPRELABYC WOTO.  
GPBWF TSTAOF ESE UFFB ASU GZYAI OI JN ESR WYH XOCWQ UHGI LZYTME.  
M'ML RTIM VX QEDEVTRRDE, QLZQAI, XAC, LAL QIBTS MRNBVF TSLG KNR IAAARV.  
RZFN TQ V PNZF TZ OVM SMSSE, EUM XRJGSEF WS QZSEPEG JMML CZNU SVFE DZBV.  
-MIQHTPLM FQJTS, LXI GLF LTRUBAMOG NFYBVWU, AVL GPR KSELE MMCLJEJP.

(Hint: This involves the Intermission's key. Now, 'flip around' a certain detail with the Intermission with a certain detail here.)

(Hint 2: The key is in the form of something with eight letters.)

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

Red Sage-Guide's text was originally written underlined and in red text, which won't show up here. I actually had to clean a few cases where the underlining only went on certain words.

If it seemed like this chapter ended awkardly (before the "bonus," and maybe even the "bonus" itself, as it was going to be at the start of the chapter prior (immediately after the Intermission) rather than the end, but I felt it would work with the pacing better if it was down here)... I was thinking of having a thing that covered the next morning as the group prepared leaving, but... this was dragging on. A lot. Especially with the Intermission, even if it's short.

I'd _technically_ consider this a two-fer, by the way. So I hope you enjoy that! "Two chapters in one!"

I'm two chapters (dammit, three, I just counted the Intermission so I gotta keep doing that) behind in this, but yeah, Blood-Foot .GIFfany is inspired by _Binding of Isaac_ fan character Moira by Sinsthar. While we're at it, that blue giantess that greeted Ford in Chapter 4 is inspired by Paimon of _Magi: Labyrinth of Magic_ (you can probably tell some of my tastes because I .GIFfany-itized her and not the anime's actual female lead). And on a tangent, that violet-haired one was partly inspired by Japhet of the game _OFF_ by Mortis Ghost, the red/white haired duo and (killing the joke above) the Red Sage-Guide were kind of based on Brenda from _Perfect Hair Forever_ (mostso the one with white hair). Most of the other copies are just random designs. Lightning Cultist is actually based on the Lunatic Cultist from _Terraria_ design-wise. I would have thought this was obvious, but then I discovered this popular music video thing called _Me!Me!Me!_ that also had someone in a mask and... actually, thematically it seems like a mature version of "Soos and the Real Girl," which is pretty cool. I knew almost nothing of that until I was nearly done with this chapter already (and yet .GIFfany's abilities are kind of based on fanart inspired by it, go figure), so that's just a coincidence.

And, of course, _Gravity Falls_ itself is owned by Disney and Alex Hirsch, in case single sentences like that can actually save a story from being nuked by the Copyright Force (I was gonna use/had been using "Copyright Police" but after Googling the term, it turns out that they actually call themselves that or something).

Now, for Chapter 8. The title, when I first thought it up, came off as a little joke for new readers. But if you're by this point and considering the way this chapter ended... _now_ it feels too much like a spoiler. You'll see what I mean when it comes out. Or, before it's out, you could just check my profile.


	9. They Leave the Island

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 8: They Leave the Island**

 **Beginning AN:**

Did you think that this story was kind of changing a little too fast?

I'm sorry, but you're gonna be complaining about that a _lot_ more if you _do_ think it's an issue.

(If you think it's bad from a critical standpoint, feel free to express your problems with the story. Although usually people whine about something being too _slow_ -paced... in an older version of the story, although I'll explain this more at the very end, there was just going to be a long chunk of the fic devoted to the main group screwing around on the island, Pyronica included.)

 **Side Note:** Pretty recently I found out that this website also eats up a dash being before .GIFfany's name. Such as "crown [dash] .GIFfany" from Chapter 2, which for a while resulted in that part looking like "Soos took off his and placed it on the Prime copy's head." I fixed all of those specific mistakes in the previous chapters, but there's still the huge issue with _run:gifocalypse_. If you see any random, odd gaps, _that's_ why they're there. I promise that before Chapter 9 of this comes out, I'll fix them for RG too. I'm just not in as much of a rush because RG is "completed" (quotes are _not_ because I'm going to add another chapter, but rather because I'd really like to tweak a lot of stuff of it, I just haven't gotten to sitting down and doing so yet) while this is still updating and thus, people will see it first on a list if it's sorted by the default update setting.

I also touched up some minor errors, probably the biggest being (in other words, this is a small edit; a bigger yet still small-ish edit is coming, mostly for the early chapters) that I've decided to have the Sage-Guides have something actively 'covering' their groins, instead of using the implied scenery censor as with the Keepers who are not .GIFfany. (I _could_ say "non [dash] .GIFfany Keepers" but then it would just turn in to nothing on this website.) I thought it might help add to their "godly" image, that they're "higher" up than the Keepers so they'll have something actively, casually covering them completely as "clothes." One could argue, as I am, that even the .GIFfanys aren't really "covered" since the pixels have so little area and kind of sort of give an image of what's underneath. So, now I specifically pointed out that Red's crotch is covered by fire. A flaming vagina. In a _Gravity Falls_ fan fic. Alex Hirsch would be proud. (Also, go back to Chapter 7 (listed as 8 because I listed the Intermission seperately) and Ctrl F "sexy, sexy ants." Again, Hirsch would be proud of me.)

* * *

"Are the sails up?" Stan asked with a cheer, standing atop the red... what was the temple material? It wasn't quite stone...

"The ship is electric! It does not need sails!" Replied the yellow-haired, Ectoenergy Captain.

"Coordinates set?" He asked, again.

"Our navigation system is mental-based, it does not need to be 'set' per-say. Not manually..." said the azure-haired Sound Captain.

"...Okay, what _do_ we need to do?" He asked, looking around the very front of the ship. Nothing, not even the other five memebers of the... Hexagram Emergency? Was that what it was called?

The Fire Captain shrugged. "Sit."

He did so, right on the floor.

"Not there," the same squad captain laughed a little. "There's a special chair that the others are already on. If it's not obvious... there's one seat avaiable with a glowing green butt print. That's yours. Just go around the very next corner and through the door over there."

"Fine." He said with a huff. "Do we at least have all the supplies? The Stan o War II, and some other things less important to me like my hand-crafted paraglider?"

"You can look through the ship's inventory screen." The Plant Squad Captain shrugged. "Try that. All we know is that most of us are inside the ship's electronic system so as to save space walking around, and our Generator is still fixed to part of the ship. Oh, and your own inventories. Remember, we made inventories that humans and Darlene could use months ago for a reason."

Oh yeah. I should have mentioned back in Chapter 7, remember .GIFfany's inventory from Chapter 2? Well, now the others have them as well. Thank goodness, as it would make stashing the other Keeper Blades a lot easier once they finally get to them.

* * *

The 'Chosen Six,' or whatever they were supposed to be called (they couldn't settle on a name, even after four months: 'Island Dwellers' would imply including the Artificial Army, who weren't part of the spell-thing per-say, or Zeskit, who _especially_ was not. Most other names were embarassing, and 'Hexagram Emergency' didn't really make sense despite that title being more 'official.'), each sat themselves on what was effectively a bench that had been glowing a rainbow of six butt prints matching the respective color-holder. This room in particular was above the ship's front - a large, glass shield (that was obviously useless against the Boundary Guardians), and at the moment it was looking out to the open ocean.

That open, 'empty' ocean.

The room itself was heated up thanks to .GIFfany's flaming sword that she stabbed in the ground becides her, but that aside, the crew was ready with a set of controls lined up in front of their bench. .GIFfany herself was also surrounded by several empty glass bottles, staring at them with sunken, bloodshot eyes.

"So we're the only ones that can pilot this thing?" Stan asked.

Ford stared at the panel in front of him. "No, we just have the... the .GIFfanys call it an 'easy mode' where the controls play like one of their video games."

" _A_ video game!" Melody was quick to correct. "Trust me, this will be nothing like _their_ video games!"

"...Got it." Stan answered, flipping the given switch that - wait, how did he know how these things worked? ...Everything came to him, something he tried not to think about as he just, by instinct, tapped the required buttons to get the 'engines' to start roaring to life. "Ready for take o-"

 **BOOM.**

No, that was not the ship exploding and killing all of them. I'm not _that_ liberal with killing off characters suddenly, no matter how much this resembles a giant aircraft carrier and how a certain favorite scene of mine I wrote back in 2011 involved a certain vampire dying in a mission to a certain similar vehicle base...

The sound was, instead, the ship blasting itself through the water.

"Alright." Said Ford, keeping both eyes firmly locked on his map. "In about two minutes, we will need to hit the turbo boost in order to go _over_ the Boundary Guardians. If we do not, they will eat the entire ship, and all of the four months' work will be for nothing. Also, we'll die."

Okay then. Waiting two minutes... ahead, a button for each of them beconed the team. Raising the question of why the ship would have six buttons that all did the exact same thing, located so close to one-another.

Outside, another burst sent the ship forth as it zipped roughly over the diameter of the shadow that lied beneath the calm surface of the ocean, roughly in an instant. Bubbles began forming above that shadow, and all of them but Stan stood up and hurried to the exit.

"Wait, don't we need to pilot this?" He asked them.

"It's on auto-pilot now." Ford directed back, stopping just at the exit to the room. "You don't remember our practice runs in the mimick ship? Now we have to fight those things directly."

Gulping, he took after him, and was soon meeted by a wall of blue flesh staring at the carrier with lines of eyes.

Then the Boundary Guardian roared.

"YOU DARE TRY TO ESCAPE THE DOMAIN THAT THE LIGHTNING CULTIST ASSIGNED US TO GUARD?" It asked, a voice that came close to blowing someone - if not everyone - off the ship completely.

"Uh... yes?" Darlene said/asked.

"BE CONSUMED FOR LEAVING OUR RING!"

The Red Sage-Guide dove out from .GIFfany's rear, looking at the owner of the Fire Keeper's Blade.

"Oh, _this_ is one of the things that have been keeping you in?" She asked. "They are the source of power around the island. They... they could contain power cells that would let you transport to the different temples! .GIFfany, I sense that they are made of a counter-magic weak to what the swords are made of! Try using your blade on them when you can!"

The Ex-AI only half-nodded in response.

Darlene just snapped her fingers, causing a large cannon from the ship's top to fire a sphere that hurtled at the beast. Considering the sheer height of the Boundary Guardian, it did not seem like the ball would be able to strike the beast's mid-point. Once it did, practically no damage seemed to be done to its skin.

Until the cannonball exploded.

A massive burst of blinding energy emerged from the projectile after it broke. Visible from space was a white pillar, piercing the sky with its spiraling Heavenly force.

The ship was unharmed, yet the Blue Boundary Guardian was sent _flying_ towards the direction of Fanservice Island, spinning through the air with a mild white scar on the damaged part. It crashed down not _on_ the island, but close enough on the opposite side from its attempted attack on the ship that the resulting splashed soaked the entire thing. Toxipedes huddled up to form rafts against the sudden rush of sea water. Stomp Snakes coated themselves with armor of spikes. The lone Arcpigskers quickly flew up together to try to blast beams at the oncoming force of nature.

Many of the pigs were just kind of screwed, then and there.

"We have to keep going forward." Ford explained to his brother. "At the fastest speed this thing can go at without boosts."

The blue entity let out a roar, and with it, the other Guardians rose from the deep.

"And now the _real_ battle should begin, if my tests about their skills were correct."

Now _Darlene_ was the one asking question.

"Wait, you somehow tested these monsters?"

"Oh, yes. Stan and I took the Stan o War II near their territory over the four months and manipulated them slightly to see some of their skills. Granted, we could only fight one side at a time, but the other side was easy to figure out. I ran some numbers through all the tests, and I came up with exact measurements of their abilities. Needless to say, they are _much_ more powerful than they look. If they weren't, I know we could have beaten them on our third day stranded. Or first, if we had worked together by then."

Boundary Guardians Red and Green dashed over to their position, almost touching one-another as they both hovered directly above the ship.

"So you're calling your friends on us, huh?" Stan asked... the question would logically have been aimed at the blue one, although there's little chance it actually heard him. If it could, that would mean that the Guardians (or at least the blue one, while we're being specific) had the ability to hear them at all times from the island. And this fic had enough 'stalker' villains in the form of the Troll and, to a lesser extent, the Lightning Cultist. And _run:gifocalypse_ had Dove's Past-a-scope and .GIFfany's ability to hop from any electronic to any other electronic. ...I gotta stop having the bad guys stalk the good guys in my _Gravity Falls_ fanworks. Also, Mable the Typomonster of _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ is practically omnipresent (but not really)...

Anyway, Red and Green. They inverted themselves in the air, each opening their mouths in a three-way split that everyone on board was **way** too familiar with after a number of tests.

Ford changed his stance, getting lower and taking out a ray gun from his inventory. "Everyone... prepare for utter hell."

It was then that the two colors of vines from the beasts completely and utterly surrounded the entire ship. Little time past before he ship was lifted through the air, and Ford began firing the nearest blaster at them, but it only got each vine to back off as it was hit with the full blast. Not nearly enough for the millions that poured after the group.

Then the cannon activated once again, flinging the two beasts off on impact. That time, they were not sent as far as the blue one had been, and they both flew to the sides of the ship.

"...This is gonna be a splash zone, isn't it?" Asked Stan, just before the red and green entities fell to the ocean's surface.

Yep. He turned out to be absolutely correct.

All of the AIs, including .GIFfany Prime, zipped in to the ship's electronic systems as the ship completely flipped over about one hundred and eigthy degrees.

The other five people fell out just about instantly, the ship spinning just-slightly towards the direction of the Red Boundary Guardian. 'Just-slightly' being on the scale of the ship's size, which is to say, there was about two blocks' worth of swimming from the others to get back there.

Thankfully, Darlene already had them shielded with a larger version of her swimming-cocoon. Remember Chapter 6? I do.

"So that's gonna protect us from drowning..." Said Stan, trying to see through the surface of the water. It _was_ somewhat clear - he could see the tops of branching coral 'trees' and kelp that stretched downward - but that only made the general atmosphere feel even worse. "But how are we going to get back to the ship?"

"Working on it." Replied Darlene.

She dug through her inventory, sorting past all sorts of cosmetics and silk-enhancing tonics - the last, tiny few scraps of mind control potion-mix left.

"Don't tell the Weapons Squad Captain I'm going to do this, okay?" She asked.

"I think she's fine with it if you're controlling bad dudes to get them to destroy other bad dudes, since those bad dudes are already trying to kill us." Soos explained.

Nodding, Darlene licked up the final bits of the potion-mix she had on the island and focused like crazy. Even while green vines of the recovering Boundary Guardian shot through the water, wrapping around all of them. Red ones would have followed too, but that one was already dealing with getting around the ship itself.

In fact, Darlene's focus was so great that veins began popping up just about _everywhere_ on her body, nose shooting out blood as her eyes bulged out and she focused her mind on the Green Boundary Guardian.

"Please don't tell me your skill has that _Star Wars_ 'only works on the weak minded' limitation." Stan said. "First, because then we might be dead. Second, it... kind of damages how I view my intelligence? I'm more than just a hot body, you know? I have a brain too. And I hate being called an idiot. Especially if it's by God Himself. Or, the Love God himself or however this world works."

"No, but it's harder to use on people with literally bigger brains!" She said after a particularly loud grunt. "And these things? They have brains the size of houses! I can tell just from trying to psychic-whatever them!"

It still seemed to be working, if just a little. The beast's labyrinth of vines slowed down, even though the group was still approaching the horizon that was its maw. Due to their position bordering on being sideways at the moment, Ford had to look 'up' to see closer towards the .GIFfanys - they launched another shell at the Red Boundary Guardian just in time, pushing it back with the explosion.

Nearly everyone in the waterproof cocoon flinched when they felt the Green Boundary Guardian lift them towards the air. The exceptions were Darlene, who started grinning instead, and Stan, who only half-flinched as he had a minor 'Oh...' moment when he saw the expression.

Rather than flicking the group in to its mouth, the Boundary Guardian flicked them with its 'vines' towards the sky. That ended up getting some screams out of Ford, Soos, and Melody as they were even able to feel the air whisk past even with the barrier of silk offering protection. The Boundary Guardian shifted itself to the position of it that would be considered 'upright.'

And the gang ended up perched close to the very top of its dome-like shape.

"Alright Green Guardian!" Darlene cheered from atop her new mount. "Move on forward! March!"

The beast let out a groan. "I don't have control over my body _and you know that!_ "

"Oh yeah." Said Stan. "That stuff doesn't work on heads, just bodies. So why did you need to focus on that thing's mind? ...Wait, isn't it _all_ just one big head? How does this thing's anatomy work, anyway?"

"It's... complicated, okay?" She asked, muscles clearly shivering from the strain of holding a control on that thing. "But the point is, we have something that can _work!_ "

Back by the ship, almost all of the Artificial Army had retreated in to the inner electronics mixed in within the aformentioned ride. The sole exception was Prime, who had slipped out in to the ocean with the ship's top side directly facing her as the craft still stayed afloat. Her head was barely above the water.

And of course those stupid red 'vines' from the Red Boundary Guardian were threatening to eat her.

Right. The Fire... Keeper... sword thingy. She hicced, nearly inviting sea water to go down her throat.

She kept a grasp on the weapon even as she felt the not-tongues wrapping around her very skin. The overwhelming number did not even bother trying to first grasp a limb or around her waist - a shell wrapped around the whole body, as it did with Zeskit's corpse.

Still, .GIFfany kept a tight hold on the sword. And, though it took a bit to keep its hold steady, she _sliced._

Upon the tip of her sword so much as grazing against the vines of the red beast, an explosion burst out from the ocean's surface. Said explosion easily came up to about a third of a Boundary Guardian's height, and spread roaring flames that coated its thick 'skin.' .GIFfany, _somehow,_ was not as harmed by those flames as she was by the fires of the pizza oven. Despite her (correctly) assuming that the fire from the propane-blade was _much_ hotter. The Red Boundary Guardian let out a yell that flew through the high-seas, wall of fire causing the ocean itself to split in to a large crater, where .GIFfany just floated in the air with her own flight, stunned.

Some sort of glowing purple orb made of stone with some sort of carving-pattern flew out from the creature's innards, landing just a short distance away from .GIFfany - between her and the ship.

"HOW?!" The beast belted in pain. "What sort of skills did you have in order to get one of the locked-away Keeper Blades?! It was already bad seeing the Sage-Guide, but being _actually hit_ with the sword is worse than what I could have imagine!"

"Yes, we got the Keeper Blades!" .GIFfany cried back. "Well! Just this one!"

Somehow, despite the being having a really alien sort of 'face,' .GIFfany could tell from its eyes that she should have kept the fact that the Fire Keeper Blade was the only one they had a secret.

"Oh..." she said upon realizing that.

Then the blue one started attacking, moving _quickly_ through the water, slamming in to .GIFfany. She was sent flying, and more importantly, her sword spun away and to the sea at what was effectively a 60 degree angle from her. Both the Fire Keeper and her Blade were submerged, although the former managed to get back up.

Looking at the _extremely_ faint glow as it slipped deeper and deeper in the ocean, the former AI screamed.

Thankfully, the Red Sage-Guide emerged and gazed down at where the weapon fell.

"You try to dive after it." She explained. "I will explain to the other Keepers what they must do."

Then the spiritual woman flew her way to the top of the green guardian, which was coming towards the blue at a pace just slightly slower than that of the blue one's body-slam.

* * *

And atop that hijacked green guardian, Darlene noticed her co-creature woman having been smacked and falling to the sea.

"Darlene."

She heard the voice of- oh. Oh! That giant red ghost-ish woman! Who happened to float right by them!

"Knock the blue... 'Guardian,' I think you call them, over. It will help in battle. And for the rest of you... .GIFfany managed to knock out a power cell, meaning that you can use the transport area to go to the other temples and free my fellow Sage-Guides."

"...I was going to do that anyway." She replied. ".GIFfany weakened the red one, so that makes which one I should stun more obvious..."

With a mighty _heave,_ the green Guardian pressed in to the blue, and with Darlene hopping off with the cocoon, the two monsters both collapsed in to the ocean at that spot. A tiny web 'parachute' helped the team land on the boat without getting killed from the change in velocity. They _did_ get a resulting sea mega-wave, but the parachute managed to kick in to ensure a much better fall to the ground.

"Hurry!" Continued the Red Sage-Guide. "To the transport room!"

The group practically landed on the ship in synchronicity. As for the Guardians, since the red one's burning and the green-blue tackle, they both appeared to be... together, in one spot off by the ocean, not moving much.

"That better not be the 'merge' we suspected they could do!" Cried Ford. "Artificial Group, quick! Move the ship out farther!"

The massive beasts began to _roar_ at that point, their flesh starting to appear to mix in with one another. As though some invisible force was sewing them up.

.GIFfany aside, none of the Hexagram Emergency saw that, as they and the Red Guide instead went to the warping area. Stan could barely hold the glowing orb in his hands.

"Which one should we do first?" Aformentioned power cell-holder asked to their ("Sage") Guide.

"Try one of them! Any of them!" She replied back.

Okay. They already got an explanation of how to use the cells offscreen; they went for the orange transporting pad-

Similar debris as the kind blocking the long tunnel in the Depths/Fire Keeper Temple blocked them from leaving that room of the Orange Temple, only it was made from bright purple-glowing chunks of the temple's own orange 'stone.' Thankfully, though, the room itself was utterly _lined_ with power cells, enabling transport to any of the other temples.

Most of them just lept on the one of their appropriate color: Stan racing to the green one, Ford dashing to the blue, Soos sliding to yellow, and Melody running over to the warp of a purple deeper and less blue than the glowing violet of the bricks and power cells. Darlene just stayed in the arid-feeling temple, folding her arms and looking around as sandy dust swirled the room.

As though her voice could transport through all of the pads as well, she cried out (as a confused Red Sage-Guide looked around the blockage): "Well! I'm going back to the ship!"

* * *

Stan, Melody, and Ford ended up reuniting with Darlene shortly after, the former in particular letting a frustrated groan. Melody's skin looked slightly lighter on her return, her eyes wider, and every centimeter of her shivering.

"Mine was blocked too!" Stan complained. "And how terrible! I _really_ wanted to see how those worshippers carved me naked!"

"Mine was blocked _and_ there was seawater leaking in to it!" Said Ford. "Zephieye must have _really_ taken all the precautions not to let us have another sword the easy way!"

"Mine _wasn't_ blocked," said Melody, "but there was a huge army of people wearing similar outfits as Zephieye, and they had some kind of barrier over my purple-guide. They just stared at me. I knew taking them on alone would be a bad idea."

After returning to their red room, Stan walked up to the ship's railing, looking out back towards the pileup of flesh. Still shifting together, still roaring, still thankfully growing farther away.

"I guess we'll just have to wait for .GIFfany to- wait a minute! Where's Soos?!"

He turned back to see that the single power cell on board had been adjusted to the yellow temple, and the other 'Keepers' were nowhere in sight.

"Oh. You figured it out already?" He said to nothing as he made his way over. "I guess I'm _not_ that good at mysteries after all... I blame the months with the naked people, not the full years."

* * *

Soos, too, actually had rubble in the way. Except that kind lacked the violet glow - it took **far** less effort for him to dig his way out, and when he did, he saw the yellow temple's Sage-Guide in the next room.

The rest of the group that had been hopping around warped in, including the first of the Guides. Just as they came up, he had gotten a V-shaped hole in the wall and used that to move forward.

"Hey guys!" He said. "I think Zephieye's trying to stop us from reaching the other temples, but for some reason she's not trying as hard as she did back with the 'Depths.'"

"She _is._ " Stan explained. "Yours is the exception for some reason..."

The Red Guide snapped her fingers.

"It's the location!" She said. "This place is around some kind of 'holy bath.' At least, that's what I gathered from the Yellow Sage-Guide! Maybe it's neutralizing Zephieye's magic that... neutralizes other magic!"

Boy, was Pyronica 'I'm supposed to be better than fireproof stuff but then there's fireproof fire-proof stuff' Deadstar not gonna like hearing that.

There was a large, nude carving of the new Mr. Mystery on the wall as well, and a person in a 'crystal' sphere - in this case, another woman, fatter in build than the red one. Longer hair by the looks of it, that curled around as it went around her 'back.' With the curled up position, however, things were harder to tell until Soos touched the barrier.

As with the previous temple, his hand caused an immediate crack that spread around the bubble at a much slower pace. His ass began to turn a very noticeable, bright, saturated yellow much as .GIFfany's had donned a highly saturated red while doing her part.

The barrier broke, filling the already strangely-bright temple to completely blinding levels.

Unlike the Red Guide, that Yellow Guide made no dramatic spin move. Instead, her bright, sparkly eyes opened, her feet slowly began extending to the ground, she grew to a similar (yet taller than the Red Guide) house-like size, and looked at her hand once she was at a stand.

"I can... move again." Oh _God_ her voice was so soft it could be used as a pillow. "And this is... real. Not a dream, but real! Real!"

She broke in to a loud, happy laughter as she closed in to wrap her arms around Soos. Her breasts were even _bigger_ than those of the Red Guide, although they were more proportional to the rest of her body. Her rear end, however, was smaller, but still incredibly thick. Her crotch was covered by a tiny, but blinding light just barely a the appropriate height and width for a vulva of a woman with her size.

"You must be the one my fate chose to let me free! Thank you, Keeper of Light! Thank you _so much!_ "

He patted her on the shoulder.

"Uh, you're welcome, but now isn't the time for tearful wake-ups. You see, one of my girlfriends is fighting this big fleshy monster, and we kind of need your help-"

She noticed the others and gasped.

"The Red Guide! And are those... humans? I _love_ humans so much! Come here, all of you!"

Somehow, she knew that Darlene was the odd one out - she dashed over to Melody and the older Pine twins, embracing all three of them in a hug. Stan and Ford were _that_ close to suffocating on each breast, although Melody - in the middle - basically felt the soft clouds of Heaven pressed against her and nearly had to weep.

"Um... hey, I'm human too!" Said Soos. "...I think."

Melody honestly wanted to ask if some of his unusual bedroom quirks were the reason for his doubt, but again, polite company. Being on an island for four months with more people that know about your secrets than those that don't still doesn't completely evaporate modesty, you know.

The yellow one finally let her grip go of the humans in order to embrace the Red Guide as well. A move which promptly had Darlene crossing her arms with a huff.

"Oh, it has been too long since I last spoke directly to one of you!" Said the second-freed deity. "How is everything going? Were you freed recently? I mean, of course you are, because you contacted me through telepathy. How much do you know about these humans? Is one of them the Fire Keeper? What is the Fire Keeper like, anyway?"

The Red Guide laughed back as Yellow began nuzzling against her neck.

"Yes, these are the Keepers - five of them. Yours is named Soos. Mine isn't here, she's named .GIFfany. The humans you hugged were," She pointed over to them as she named them, with the Yellow Sage-Guide's eyes following. "Stanley, Stanford, and Melody."

"I know we need to save our ship and .GIFfany," Said Darlene, "But you're all treating me like an afterthought right now."

"Well then," laughed the Yellow Sage-Guide, "I guess I should hug you _too!_ Come here, Arachinimorph!"

As the yellow spirit dove down on the spider woman to embrace her as well, Melody tip-toed her way to Soos and whispered.

"I'm sorry, but the two Guides hugging was really hot. When this is over, I'm going to ask for as many .GIFfanys as possible that resemble the both of them. It's urgent."

"Ah, right..." The Yellow Guide said after finally breaking her hug with Darlene. "If you say you need our help, then you do. You might already know this from my friend, but we cannot do very much in these forms as our power is right now. But we can give you our swords! Here is yours, Soos."

At first, Soos thought that exceptionally bright fireflies came out of nowhere in front of him. But it turned out that those were just small, white, shining lights - that soon turned in to lights of a variety of colors, which came together in a brilliant rainbow flash that resulted in a proud, large yellow blade floating before him. Soos gasped, his eyes practically looking like .GIFfany's after a good number of compliments.

"You have _no idea_ how badly I wanted my own sword after seeing .GIFfany get hers." He said. "I've seen a real-life video game, ate a bunch of rejected candy, dated another real-life video game, got a real girlfriend, designed a mecha, fought with that mecha, saved the world, took after Mr. Pines, got stuck on an island with my friends, _and_ found out I was a chosen one. If I grab this sword..." He started breathing quickly. "I don't know what else in life I'd want anymore... except maybe kids."

"Grab it." Said the Yellow Sage-Guide. "That sword is yours. It aways had been, assigned to you by the fate of the cosmos themselves. I was just keeping it in my care for centuries, ready for it to awaken."

So he did. And a bright, white glow flared up. Better still was that, with his mind, it seemed as though he could get that glow to be any color he wished.

 **YOU GOT THE LIGHT KEEPER'S BLADE!**

 **A legendary weapon that was hidden within the cracks of Earth. Shine fabulous justice on those that stand against the path of rightness with a single swing! Powered by magic and propane.**

"Now let's save .GIFfany!" Soos cheered. "...Again."

Nodding, the Yellow Sage-Guide dissolved herself in to mist that went in to Soos's butt, and the glow began dimming down on him as well. On their way out, Stan turned towards the other Guide that remained:

"So, why don't you just fight these things instead? You didn't say anything about that Anti-Sage draining your powers."

"Oh, sorry. Yes, we actually granted most of our abilities to the six of you in a time of desperation. We can only start regaining our skills in full power back after a long time after being set free. And you do not have the fullest form of our skills either... yet. To prevent 'the powers from falling in the wrong hands,' we thought it might be best if you had to all band the swords together to get your own 'full power,' and... we _really_ didn't think that through."

"Nah, you kind of did." Soos replied. "After all, imagine if pre-arc .GIFfany or Darlene had your Butt God powers."

* * *

Back outside, none of the three Boundary Guardians looked like their original shapes. Instead, they were all merged in to a literal mountain-sized (well, maybe a mountain range-sized) pileup of skin, eyes, and mouths that slowly rose up from the ocean's surface.

"...And .GIFfany's still out there." Said Stan.

In the depths of the ocean, on the other hand, there was a warm glow resting by the sea floor.

An arm tried to reach out for that glow. Faint. Weak. Then, that arm turned to tentacles. Three of which reached at it. The first failed. The second grazed against the sword on the rock.

The third managed to wrap around the handle, and the owner of both the tentacle and the sword began to ascend.

Nearing the surface, .GIFfany found that the Boundary Guardians had barely dipped below said vertical position at that point. Instead, the three of them formed a towering wall that blocked out the near-noon sun from her position. Still reforming, .GIFfany took advantage of that to take off flying back to the ship - from that distance, just barely a red dot in the sea.

On her way there, she held on to her aching head - she wasn't sobering as quickly as she'd hoped. Reaching the ship revealed that the rest of the 'Fated Seven' (according to the Troll) or the 'Hexagram Emergency' (according to the Lightning Cultist) or whatever, but sans Pyronica of course. A number of members of the Artificial Army gathered around them, although there was a half-circle of space between them and the main crew. The Red Sage-Guide was there too, and she wordlessly went back to .GIFfany's rear.

The first thing she noticed upon landing was Soos's new sword. She gasped in excitement.

"You too?!" She asked. He nodded.

"The other temples were all blocked off. Oh, my guide is really nice. I think she'd like to meet you when we're not being attacked by those things."

Just as he said that, the Boundary Guardians appeared to be at their fullest form - they looked much like what their undersides were, 'liquid' that had a number of mouths emerging and withdrawing. In three different colors that refused to properly mix together, surrounded by a shell of their vines and harder flesh. An especially gigantic, single eye appeared in the dead center of the beast. And then, it - they - yelled, three of their already booming voices at once.

"YOU WILL STAY HERE!" The wall of flesh began barreling towards them, at a speed much faster than that of the ship originally escaping them. "OR BE EATEN!"

No.

It was time to **exit.**

As the wall of Guardians approached, the twins raced back to the cannons and prepared to unleash more fire. Soos and .GIFfany stayed by the very front of the carrier, each of them with their respective swords ready. Their own Guides both re-emerged, taking fighting stances along with them. Finally, Darlene morphed in to her full spider form, and Melody took a mighty leap on top of her back.

The beast roared. The end of the battle was _on._

Once the Guardian trio was in cannonball range, _every single copy bar Prime_ sent a steady, person-sized electric blast in their collective direction. The end result resembled the boat shooting off a number of overlapping lights in all sorts of colors, although the main ones were those of the squad captains that corresponded to the first-generation professors in _run:gifocalypse_ : White, red, orange, yellow, chartreuse, green, spring green, cyan, azure, blue, violet, magenta, rose red, and black. The 'default' .GIFfany-blue electricity was present as the dominant color as well.

They already knew that even that amount of voltage would not kill the beasts. It would barely slow them down.

Still, Stan opened fire from the cannon.

The impact had a similar effect as it did before - the cannonball exploded and the flesh saw a great amount of damage dealt to it. However, that time, the collection of Guardians was not sent flying back. They were barely even pushed.

"...Is that bad?" Stan asked. "That looks... _pretty bad._ "

"This is the sort of thing we are expecting." Replied his brother. "Keep going. We need to fire again."

Clicks were heard as the cannon was re-loaded: cannonball, canonball, canonball, and the twins positioned themselves almost next to the opening.

.GIFfany and Soos lept out resembling a blazing meteor breaking through the lightning screen and a shining flash of rainbowlight, respectively. All it took was one swing of each of their blade to get the wall of Guardians to stop advancing. Crescents of flame and white light came with each of their repeated strikes, which eventually caused the wall to break off a number of various worm-like former-appendages, all of which had mouths on the end. These worm-looking beings advanced their way to completely swarm the ship. Additionally, every sword swing caused a storm of power cells to rain out in to the ocean.

A lightning storm errupted from their carrier - unlike the entire Guardian-fusion, the tinier tendrils _were_ able to be deflected by the copy army. Yet that did not seem like enough.

Darlene and Melody, the latter still on the former, charged on forth right to the threat itself. Just a leap from the front, and Darlene practically shot herself forward in order to catch up to the duo that was slashing at the triple-beast.

Said duo that was slashing had since managed to tear it open a little - the 'wall' turned in to more of a kind of inverted dome once they both attempted to stab downward from above the beasts. The mass of flesh just opened to avoid any further pain, providing both Soos and .GIFfany with a piece of 'land' to try aiming for, as the bottom of their inverted tall dome seemed _relatively_ safe to land on.

Upon landing, they swatted away at any tentacles that dared try to go near before finally ending up back to back.

"This is kinda cool!" Soos said. "We're the first two of the group to get swords! It's almost kinda like some kind of grand narrative keeps pushing the two of us together. Like, that we were really fated to be together and Melody was more like the mentor to get both of us to be better people."

.GIFfany just turned towards him, unable to really say anything in response. He could tell that he actually took her speech away based on the way her lip trembled.

"I'm just being hypothetical. I like my relationship with Melody, and I like your relationship with her, but what if the great Love Gods don't?"

They both deliberately lept off in opposite directions - a red beam of flame and a yellow beam of brightness, darting to the ends of the inverted Guardian hybrid. By that point, Darlene came roaring in with Melody charging forth on her back, each armed with a large sort of cannon-gun in their hands that blasted miniature versions of the exploding spheres. Darlene wrestled past one particular group of liquid-like arms to make her way closer to where the sword-wielding couple had both gathered back to back.

"Soos!" .GIFfany cried, burning another set of tentacles. "We are going to try the fusion move again!"

"Really?" He responded. "As if this day couldn't get any better!"

"Hop by the center! With the others!"

He found it _surprisingly_ easier to hop around with the Blade in his hands, doing a flip in the air as he slashed another beam of rainbow light at a house-sized eyeball that appeared from the navy blue flesh in front of him. Upon landing, .GIFfany lept next to him, threw her sword in the air, and turned to a similar pink band of light. Chuckling, Soos tossed his sword in the air as well. She continued circling him for a while as Melody and Darlene both had to stop what they were doing to get wide looks at them. The speed of .GIFfany's energy form picked up, sparks were given off, she jumped on to him and...

And...

She let out a _loud_ cry of pain as she lept back off, holding her head in pain.

" _OW!_ " Was the aformentioned cry. "Stupid _FUCKING_ hangovers!"

As her sword struck the moving skin that served as the 'ground' to that 'place' and the flames began to burn an additional patch on the monster fusion, she opened her inventory, whipped out the sixteen cans of faux-Alamo, and began tossing them all over the place. The Yellow Sage-Guide floated over and stared at .GIFfany, seemingly ignoring the abominations that surrounded all of them.

And then, closing her eyes, the Guide floated down to hug the last of the six. .GIFfany half-glared at her at first, but then sighed, taking in the hug and patting her on the back.

Soos managed to catch his sword as it landed by his hands. He put it in his own inventory and went up to hug her as well.

"Thank you." The former dating simulator said. "Both of you."

"One of our own Keepers should never be in such an emotional hole like this." Said the Yellow Guide. "The powers of the light can heal physical injuries, but not emotional ones. Oh Fire Keeper, what is wrong?"

Both of them ended the hug as .GIFfany stood up, yanking her own blade back.

"I feel like I am getting everything the old me wanted, but I do not know if this is what the new me wants."

A mass of what looked like red and blue tree branches stuck out from the Guardian flesh, appearing to try to impale the two sword-wielding Keepers. Just in time, Darlene launched another mini-cannon shot to blast them away.

"Can you guys have your emotional moments literally any time _but_ when we're right in the middle of three giant killer domes of meat, please?"

All three parties blushed, and the Yellow Guide even went back to hiding out in her patronee's rear.

Shortly after that, however, the Blade-holders were swatted down by tentacles that reached out from the 'ground' of the Guardian hybrid. With a gasp, Melody and Darlene alike tried to fire at them - no ammo. They two were swatted.

* * *

Back on the boat, Ford stared down the cluster as it still appeared to be getting closer. He could tell, however, that the previous bursts of flame and brightness that errupted in crescents (which had since faded) made that considerably difficult. Bits of the flesh were ripped, both burned and split over with glowing wounds. One particular cannonball from the ship itself managed to thankfully send the four that were fighting within the beast directly flying out, an act that was no coincidence. Ford saw the group's sudden 'loss' there, and managed to scan out the best way to catapult them to safety. Stan rushed off to help the group stand, although .GIFfany had been knocked almost completely unconcious.

Letting out a collection of pained cries from the latest impact, the triple-Guardian started to sink in to the waters below. With a more aggressive yell, the creatures fired out all of the various beer cans .GIFfany had tossed earlier - aiming them at the boat, where they all exploded in to foam right by their former holder. The Fire Keeper Blade's flames around immediately ignited them as well, although .GIFfany herself was unscathed from this oddly indirect attack. Instead, the flames appeared to help open her eyes far more than Stan's attempt to lightly slap her face awake.

"GHAAAARGLE!" Cried the combined voice that could reach across the entire mega-ship. "You naked idiots still insist on fighting your destiny?!"

"Yes." Ford nodded, preparing to fire another cannonball. "Yes, we do."

"Hey, uh, the life reading says that we still need just a _little_ than one ball to kill these things." Stan tried to translate off of what he had just read off of one of the electronics on board. "And this is the last ball we have."

"I have an emergency attack planned just in case that happens..." Ford said, grabbing a hold on what resembled brass knuckles. Instead of brass, they were made out of that same Red Temple stone. "I am going to load _myself_ in to the cannon too. I need you to fire me out."

It took a moment for Stan to understand where he was trying to go with that. But he got it, just as the four younger Keepers got in to their stances.

" _Oh._ " He said.

"WHY do you insist on trying to stop what is certain?!" The Guardian hybrid screamed, exceptionally large tentacle reaching around the entire ship and grabbing it with no effort. The field of electricity from the Artificial Army was brought to a stop as the tentacle immediately jerked the entire ship closer towards the massive beast, causing everyone but the Stans to slip and fall over. Causing the water around to rush forth. A mouth that reached towards the skies along the flesh opened, surrounded by a patternless mix of maroon red, forest green, and navy blue. And that mouth was, predictably, where the ship was being pulled towards. The cannon began to glow again as Stan scrambled to keep his balance, aiming the machine and preparing fire.

"Because that's what makes us _us!_ " Ford shouted in response. "Our team!"

"If we're cornered, you think we'll back up like some helpless animal? No! We're _bears!_ " Stan clicked some of the switches on the back of the ultimate offense.

Despite that mouth closing down on them and sending the entire team to darkness, the brothers continued:

"Bears that always have more than one head, always looking out for each-other." Ford said without skipping a beat. That is, until he said the following: "...Even when we didn't want to."

"So BACK OFF!" Stan belted in the darkness, the cannon about to blast its final attack on the Guards.

"Yes, BACK OFF!" Shouted Ford, right before the ball fired - carrying him on it.

A burst of light briefly illuminated the chasm-like maw of the beastly fusion, rippling around as Ford rode the cannonball through what was nearly complete darkness. In order to see when he should jump out, some built-in light in his glasses helped create a small green glow to illuminate his path.

"WE'RE GOING TO TAKE THIS SHIP TO PLACES WE HAVE NEVER SEEN! WE ARE GOING TO STOP ZEPHIEYE! WE ARE GOING TO KILL BILL'S FOLLOWERS FOR GOOD! AND BEFORE WE WILL DO ANY OF THAT,"

He lept off at just the right time, letting the ball collide with the triple Boundary Guardian-fusion and hitting the back of their combined mouth. Letting a roar, the Guardians practically spat out the ship and flew back. Ford remained in the air, knuckled fist ready for the final blow. As his naked body flew through the open ocean air, he finished his speech:

" _WE ARE GOING TO ESCAPE FROM FANSERVICE_ _ **ISLAND!**_ "

And punctuated that last word by punching one of the many, many eyes of the Guardian hybrid. The stone-knuckles let out a soft glow, and that was it.

The three giant dangers of the deep that had been haunting the Keepers for four months had exploded in to chunks of meat and of remaining power cells. As the ship returned to its stability, the entire crew was able to see that all there was for all directions after the rain of meat and stone was just empty sea. Boundless water. Nothing able to take them down. Nothing able to hold them back.

The Sage-Guides rushed out to Ford's location, grabbing him with their hands and ensuring a soft float down back to his vehicle.

"We cannot interact with physical objects like this for long periods of time," said the Red Guide, "so be careful when you can no longer rely on the Artificial Army to save you. Like this moment right now."

As soon as the three made it back, almost everyone on board cheered.

"We did it!" Stan cried out, giving his brother a series of pats on the back. "We're finally out of that place! For good, too! Nothing's holding us back anymore!"

Darlene took a deep breath in. "I have _so much_ to do when I get back to land, I don't even know where to start..."

Melody instantly brought Soos and .GIFfany Prime in to a hug. And they, in turn, received a much bigger hug by a group of the Artificial Army.

"So now we can make our marriage officially legal...?" Asked the former. Her eyes widened as she came to a realization.

"Oh... and find clothes, too!" She added. "That's really important!"

"Important for you." Said .GIFfany with a half-smile. "I think I can wait. I... am considering a rehabilitation group."

"The Light Squad Captain is working on something like that already." Soos pointed out. "She said that her attempt at 'dream mirrors' kind of went sour..."

"Oh, speaking of light..." said the Yellow Guide, "are you going to activate the Yellow Temple? I assume you already did that with the red one."

It was difficult to tell due to her palette, but it seemed like the Red Guide blushed upon hearing those words.

"'Activate?'" Asked Stan.

The Yellow Guide shrugged. "Yes. Deep in the very bottom of each temple should be some sort of 'switch' that will cause the entire structure to fly up and send a beam out to aid all things built with its rock. If you get all six of them activated, you can use them as a weapon to immediately reach the Anti-Sage's temple. And potentially even destroy her and her Keeper more easily."

The Red Guide began rubbing her shoulder. As she brought that one arm towards the other, she brushed past her boulder-sized breasts, causing them to jiggle. "Yeah... I... _forgot_ to mention that little detail..."

"That should not be a problem." Replied the other Guide. "You can just take the teleporter room over to- _ohhhh..._ "

Red pointed down. "This _is_ the teleporter room for the Red Temple now..."

"Wouldn't us taking little bits and pieces from that place ruin its 'activation' anyway?" Stan asked.

"Oh, if I understood the words of our worshippers through the telepathy while I was asleep, the temples themselves can somehow regenerate as long as there is a decent amount of them left." Replied the Red Guide. "The stone just... makes more of its own stone. Out of nothing. You can make just about limitless tools from temple stone alone if you have unlimited time."

"Yes, yes..." Ford nodded. "I actually noticed that while we were raiding .GIFfany's temple for parts."

"...I somehow _didn't._ " Said Stan.

 _Everyone_ had their attention grabbed by the following voice:

"Woah." Pyronica said, floating by the front of the ship. "Looks like you have two more additions to the 'Really Needs to Wear a Bra Club' since the last time we spoke."

Nobody said a word to the teleporting Feminine Flame Beta.

"Kidding! I hate clothes too! But seriously, _sheesh!_ Weird ghost women, haven't either of you two ever heard of breast reduction surgery?"

Ford just tried firing another laser at her, once again being met with her zipping away and re-appearing right behind him. That time, however, she grabbed Stan's head and held some sort of ray gun up to it.

Ford's flat expression crumbled with that - he flinched, taking a step back after feeling his entire body tense from the threat.

"Aha!" The demon laughed. And then she followed that up with even more laughs. "I love how much you changed! Now I _don't_ need to threaten your kids like Bill! ...But I'm not saying I _don't_ want to do that anyway! Heh heh heh heh!"

"What do you want?!" Ford said, clutching the fist of his free hand. Pyronica immediately let go of her hold on Stan. "It _better_ not involve harming Dipper or Mab-"

"Oh, nothing really." She replied, teleporting back to the front of the ship (with Stan out of her grip). "I just came here to say hi. And... 'congratulate' you for killing those things. Seriously, I wasn't even sure if _I_ could take down the Guardians. Blame the stupid Lightning Cultist for hiring them."

"Excuse me, but I am listening in, and I must say that I am a genius. A _self-proclaimed genius._ "

Those highly arrogant words came from the Cultist herself, who had since teleported right by the top of the ship, just in front of the cannon. She glared down at the whole group from above.

"So." Zephieye continued speaking. "It looks like my barrier over the Yellow Temple didn't work. I had a feeling that my reversed Sage Stone magic wouldn't be as effective over there."

"Guys, this moment went from really awesome to really scary." Said Soos. "What do we do?"

"Come on and get the rest of the sword-thingies!" Cheered Pyronica. "After all, all seven of us need our swords freed for me to enter my unstoppable Hexagram Emergency form and kill all of you!"

"No, do _not_ get the swords!" The Cultist belted back. "You should have stayed on the island right from the start!"

"...Seriously," Soos looked around between the two threats. "I don't know what to do!"

Pyronica decided to cut out the middle man and flew over to the only figure wearing actual clothes.

"Come on, Zeffie!" She taunted. "You don't care about this planet! I don't care about this planet! We both have the exact same goal! Why won't you let them get the swords, and me to get my sword?"

"Because I know your 'Weirdmageddon' would survive the old world and make its way in to my new!" The Cultist belted back. "And should that happen, everything I spent my entire life building up for... well, you'd just _ruin_ it! With your killings and your reality bending and your... _everything._ "

"Come on!"

"No."

"Pleaaaase?" She kept a huge grin on as she said that, already knowing the answer.

"No."

"But-"

"The only 'buts' that matter is that those of the Keepers do not get their swords. And that includes you. As we speak, my bea _-u-_ tiful cult is doing the best it possibly can to prevent you from entering the Black Temple."

Then yet _another,_ completely unfamiliar voice was heard right when it seemed like Pyronica was about to grab Zephieye by the throat:

"Cut it out, you two."

Oh _shoot._ That was Darlene's boat the voice's owner was in. ...It suddnely hit the entire Keeper group that they had forgotten about that. Well, the source of the voice, the only figure piloting the boat at the moment, was... some kind of cyan-ish woman with long, teal hair. She had a third eye on her forehead, a generally average if a little curvy build, and teal fur around her lower arms, hands, lower legs, feet, and a tiny triangle of fur over her crotch that honestly just looked like pubic hair more than anything.

Both Zephieye and Pyronica looked at that person. Based on the collective stares by the entire Artificial Army, she did not originate from a .GIFfany. Not that she _at all_ looked like one to begin with.

"Who are you?" Asked Stan.

"The name's Katjus 'Kath-ustin' Othtroll. But you can call me 'That _Other_ Troll' if you want." She replied. "I'm sure you heard of me from Zeskit or something? That troll guy you killed, like... a year or something ago? If none of you are familiar with trolls this might come as a shock, but I am actually the exact same species as him. Our males look alike. The females have a little more variance; like, humans _don't_ think we have the exact same face. But they _do_ think of that for the guys.

"Anyway, you two. Weirdo in the robes. Weirdo with the fire-limbs. Shoo. Go away. You're killing their victory right now."

Surprisingly, they kind of listened. After giving Katjus a short glance and shrug, both Zephieye and Pyronica teleported away with their respective warping ability.

"Now, you're getting off this island, right? By the way, this boat or something you forgot. I didn't steal it. Well, I mean, I _DID,_ but it's not like I stole it from you while you already had it packed. So sue me. But I'll give you this boat back if you don't."

"Do you... want something from us?" Ford asked the- 'that' other troll.

"Uh... not really except to get out of this island. So, maybe I can tag along with you guys? I promise I'm not as bad as that other guy. Honestly, finding out about what he did to you grossed me out."

"Should we?" Stan asked to his brother. "I mean, this _is_ one of Zeskit's friends we're talking about. That same guy that tried to turn us in to his talking batteries."

The Weapons Squad Captain stepped forward. "If I may say something... you did not have us to aid you when Zeskit attacked, and he had the latent powers of all six of you plus Pyronica. Now, you have our loyal hands by your side and this troll appears to lack abilities."

Stan shrugged. "Whelp. Lawyer Number One convinced me."

"Sure!" Soos added another vote. "I mean, yeah, and .GIFfany and I could just cut her up with our new swords if she tries to fight us!"

Melody had to stare at Katjus for a moment before saying anything further. "If she tries to 'rank' any of us, though, she's out." She jerked her thumb behind her to emphasize. "I would be covering myself around you if _you_ weren't technically naked too."

.GIFfany kept a hand on her forehead, barely even looking at the female troll. "I am indifferent."

And Darlene just shrugged. "I really shouldn't be the one to judge..."

Even the Yellow Sage-Guide chipped in: "As long as she promises not to kill anybody! Well... I mean, anybody who... er... nevermind."

As did the Red: "I don't really _want_ her on, but... she might know something valuable about... well, I can't really think of anything _I_ can't answer for you instead."

"So it's..." Ford looked around a bit before continuing, "se...ttled? You can come on?"

"Good." Katjus replied, hopping on the deck. The Artificial Army used some sort of magnetic pull to lift the boat on board as well. (The team was _not_ going to forget it the second time!) "So, where are we off too? I mean, I have my own kind of-home, but that can wait because I don't really have anything to do there and I think your adventures look like they might be more fun than that."

"We... uh..." Those were the only two words (and even then, the latter was questionable) Ford could utter.

"Before I forget this too," the Red Sage-Guide said, "all of those power cells that you obtained from the Boundary Guardians could surely upgrade this ship as it stands. I know you can make it fly, at the very least."

That got everybody but Katjus to look up at her.

"A _flying_ ship?" Asked Stan. "As in 'real' flying or 'just going really fast' flying? Either one of those is cool."

"Both!"

* * *

Psst: I'm getting kind of lazy with codes, so I'll just bluntly hide the key to this chapter's cryptogram right here, and all you have to do is hope that you memorize it: EXIT. (Or you could just "cheat" and jump right to the bottom while it's fresh in your head, but you _might_ be spoiled... I'm not telling whether or not there's serious spoilers at the bottom of the scroll bar or not!)

* * *

The process to _get_ it to fly was remarkably short. Just fish the power cells out, plop them by the engine, and fire.

With that, the water aligning the base of the ship started to slip off as the very bottom began to hover in the air. A soft, quick glow of violet later, and the entire craft floated straight upwards.

Then the ship bolted off at near un-seeable speeds. Just a red haze that made its way through the sky.

"YEAH!" Stan roared, looking as the individual bumps and curves on the ocean soon became smaller and the horizon stretched farther. "We just went from going anywhere in the ocean to anywhere _on the planet!_ How's _THAT_ for us being 'destined to be stranded here?! Now, where should we go first?"

Soos, Melody, and Ford all cheered the same answer:

"GRAVITY FALLS!"

"OKAY THEN! GRAVITY FALLS IT IS!"

Darlene looked as though she wanted to comment something else, but stopped herself before getting anything more than a single breath out.

With that, and some motions by the Keepers, the ship was off. Soon, the sea it drifted over became land, and it slowed down once that land became _forest_ land specifically. A very _familiar_ forest.

With something unfamiliar floating high above it, causing the ship to slow down. Slow down greatly and immediately.

To be blunt, it kind of looked like five palette swaps of the red carrier sloppily slapped together, with a blue and yellow ship resembling 'arms' that stuck out and faced the 'research team's' red original from each side. Connecting the blue as a 'shoulder'-like figure was a green complex, and mirroring it was the orange complex to the yellow. They looked less like carriers than the rest. Violating rainbow order further was the purple ship, oddly shaped so that it 'stood' on its back by the point where the orange and green met and with the top facing the crew. Glowing black and violet cracks were along the entire combined structure, and something tiny floated between the blue and yellow 'arms.'

Ford used a telescope to get a closer look, and after seeing that that figure was the Lightning Cultist, everything made too much sense.

.GIFfany could scan Zephieye from a distance, and Darlene was able to spot her as well. Both of the supernatural women frowned.

"It's... her." .GIFfany explained to the three Keepers who still saw the Cultist as just a pale blue dot among the floating stone. "The Cultist. Of all the demons I was going to face after getting back home, why does _she_ have to be the first of them?"

When she teleported right to the steering area, everyone who's last name was not 'Pines' flinched. One of the two who _did_ have that for a last name was the first to speak out.

"WHAT are you doing above Gravity Falls?" Ford asked, pointing towards her. "You better not be planning _ANYTHING_ against those people! Do you have any idea how hard my brother worked to-"

.GIFfany interrupted him by trying to just shoot lightning at the masked threat. Yet again, as had happened in the Red Temple, even the blinding bolt that had caused all the others - including the near by members of the Artificial Army - to shield their eyes had just bounced off of her.

"Well!" Replied Zephieye. "What an introduction you have here! You're not gonna-"

.GIFfany lept to the air, sword instantly ready - even through the mask, the AI could see just a minor glimmer of _fear_ in the Cultist's eyes. The Fire Keeper brought only one mighty swing, creating roaring flames that Zephieye was just barely able to dodge by floating back.

".GIFfany, I know we didn't have the best relationship, but-"

"DIE, YOU VILE BITCH!"

Then the pink-haired electrical scylla tried to stab her sword down at the enemy, but that resulted in a different emotion to flash behind the mask.

One that made itself clear when several of the same papers with Xs on them fluttered from Zephieye's sleeve, stopping the Fire Keeper Blade in mid-air.

"WOULD YOU LET ME EXPLAIN WHY I'M FREAKING HERE?! YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T KILL ME ANYWAY!"

She zipped to the other side of the carrier's clear shielding, fists gripped as the papers were dismissed. .GIFfany fell to the ground after that, glaring up at the Cultist with heavy breaths.

"Now, as I was _trying_ to say, I do not want to hurt this stupid little town. I just thought that the extra paranormal signals-"

"Weirdness." Ford corrected.

"I know, I know, but paranormal signals makes me sound closer to _my_ higher intelligence than you."

"You..." Stan cracked a small snort. "Think you're smarter than my brother? Oh, even the old me wasn't that stupid!"

The sky blackened as the Cultist's grip became tighter. The Moon, previously just a barely-noticeable crecent among the sky it faded in to, began to shine brightly as a mighty crimson light.

 **"** _ **QUIET!**_ **QUIT INSULTING MY INTELECT YOU PILES OF FLESH!"**

Nobody said a thing - although .GIFfany was giving her a thousand words with her murder look.

"Now." The sky did not lighten back up, and the Moon did not return to its normal color. "What I was trying to say:

"I never got the chance to tell you that your craftswomanship was impressive. So impressive, in fact, that since I saw it back when you finished the skeleton, I had to copy your idea. Four months later, and I was ready to get the final ritual started!

"...This is the part where you ask 'what final ritual?'"

"You said to be quiet." Said Stan.

"I _said_ don't try to out-smart me. Because I am too smart for that. Anyway, I have everything already set to unleash the four 'Mystery Knights,' the Skeltaur Knights, on the world."

"Skeltaur?" Asked Melody. "I... I think I heard that name before. Back when we dated."

Zephieye nodded. "Damn right, you did. That's because they are ultimately the key to ending this old world and starting a new, perfect one.

"Now, two of you already have the Keeper Blades, and quite frankly, that's two too many. I am doing to have to do something a little... _drastic_ about that. And something slightly less drastic to ensure that the rest of you do not get the other Blades. Especially Stan, seeing as we _are_ right above his Temple after all. I _would_ be worried about telling you that, but you seem to know about that already."

"Yeah. Kind of." Stan said.

"Then you will understand why I am about to do this:"

She teleported away, and that was when the five-way combo ahead of the ship began to glow. Ford's eyes grew just roughly as wide as the ships themselves when he saw that.

"EVERYONE!" He directed. "WE NEED TO MOVE! NOW!"

The ship successfully dodged a blast of violet light as it propelled itself up higher-

The blast curved around, hitting the red stone craft right in the back.

Everyone felt the blast push them forward. The six Keepers all flying forth, hitting the glass-like shielding that protected their driving area. The Red and Yellow Sage-Guides alike were both forced out of their respective holders - and the holder of the latter was even knocked out from hitting his head hard against the firm stone. The members of the Artificial Army who were in physical form all had to keep their balance as their very boat rocked and threatened to fall from the sky, with even the ones in electrical form swaying along with the spot attacked as shown through the sprites on the screen. With one flick of the wrist from the Cultist, another series of X-drawn papers flew out and trapped the entire ship in a near-perfect dome over them. The Red Sage-Guide gasped.

"A Dome of Silence!" She cried out. "These are capable of knocking out _any_ supernatural-"

She collapsed to the ground, asleep. Along with Darlene, the Yellow Guide, .GIFfany, and her derivatives.

The remaining three pilots were just _barely_ able to get the ship to float down towards the mountains bordering the town, but even that was met with the ship crashing as it barely drifted down there. Ford in particular let a sigh of relief after finding this one thing that had been separating him from a plunge to the ground was properly docked.

Then the Cultist teleported directly within the ship.

"Luckily for me, and of course that means for society in general," she said, "I can use the fact that they have their Blades to my advantage and try controlling them directly. Like this:"

Another hand-raise from the Cultist, Soos and .GIFfany's unconcious bodies ascended to the air, with thin bubbles of their respective Keeper-color appearing around them. She snapped her fingers, and they were both warped away.

Ford managed to successfully whip out a stasis ray from his inventory, a shinier and improved model to the one Zeskit had stolen back on the island, and used it to freeze Zephieye in place. He was about to turn his head and shout "GO!" to the others, just to see that Stan and Melody already lifted Darlene on their shoulders and made their way towards the edge.

With some cracks of her bright lilac lightning, the Cultist broke free from the freeze-grab and prepared more arm-movements as Ford, too, started running to the edge of the ship.

Thankfully, the 'Dome of Silence' appeared to have a number of gaps when looking at it up-close. Despite the pages heading over to the ship's sides, there were enough spaces so that the four could hop off, with Stan _barely_ managing to use a magnet gun and the careful shoulder-holding to slow down the fall. The landing, however, was far from pretty: Stan immediately slipped on a loose rock, causing him and Melody to both get bruised up from a fall. Darlene hit her side as well when both of them lost their grip on her, but that at least managed to help restore her conciousness outside of the anti-supernatural barrier. Ford landed shortly after with his own magnet gun, managing to get a better grip thanks to being able to use three of his limbs.

"Okay..." Stan said. "So, my Temple. It's below where that UFO you showed me was."

"Well," Ford glanced in the general direction of Crash Site Omega, "it's not a 'UFO' technically but - yes."

Zephieye floated down to the group of four, raised a hand up, and the surrounding sheets of silence disappeared. She said nothing to any of the remaining Keepers. All of them turned to face her, but Stan spoke out first.

"You want me more than any of them, right?" He jerked a thumb to himself to emphasize. "Then catch."

He then lept on an especially large rock by the mountainside, putting extra pressure with both his feet on the stone. Shifting his weight a little, the rock managed to slip out of the hold it had been on for millennia, and began to slide down the cliff with him trying desperately to surf on it.

The Lightning Cultist groaned.

"I don't have time for this garbage!" She shouted. "KANK!"

A flash of black lightning appeared behind her, and from it emerged a man that looked both familiar yet... not. Middle-aged look, regular white shirt. Except his pants were black instead of blue, and his hair matched them.

"Kank Kill!" Zephieye directed. "You deal with these three! I'll send a search party after Stan."

"Search party?" Darlene asked, backing away along with Melody and Ford. "With who?"

"Do you really think I run the Lightning Cult by myself?" Asked the leader of said cult. "That I do not have other people who helped me with my research? To write my superior journals? Well, I will have you know... EVERYONE! FOLLOW ME! WE ARE HUNTING STANLEY PINES, THE KEEPER OF WIND!"

She began to fly off in the direction Stan bolted down 'surfing.' Following her was an erruption of pale blue fabric from the giant collection of five 'carriers' - each of them another person, dressed much like Zephieye was, except the exact form of their mask varied. Within short time, they began to cast bolts at Stan just when he finally managed to duck within the trees. Zephieye looked back and forth after the Keeper of Wind's disappearance in to nature, shaking her fist in anger.

Higher above, the remaining three prepared to fight Kank Kill. Except, rather than giving the first attack, he opted to punch the carrier in the air. Black energy rippled through as the stone structure was sent flying up, with Kank leaping after it. Snapping his fingers, all of the .GIFfany derivatives were sent in to the computer systems, which were then closed off with black static. He landed atop the ship, keeping it floating in the air.

Kank snapped his fingers and another figure bolted through and landed fist-first, this one from rather pixellated fire. A man, unmistakenly Rumble McSkirmish, given a fresh flesh and blood makeover. His organic blond hair flowed through the winds of the corrupted, black day sky.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kank saw the two freed Sage-Guides fly past him. He simply scowled in response.

"Rumble." He explained. "Your job is to help, one last time, assimilating our mega-ship project. Merge this red one here with the others. Now, do _not_ look in to the computer screens. The previous evil owners of this ship had filled the computers with traps. Once again, do _not_ look in to the electronic system. Or you will **die.** "

He nodded. "I got it. In the name of my fallen lover who betrayed me... I will follow the words of the Cultist of Light."

* * *

Melody tried peering up at the ascending ship as it moved to its unofficial siblings.

"So... how screwed are we right now?" She asked.

"Well, you _dated_ her, so you should know how bad she is." Darlene replied. "Don't ask me: I just got some potions and a killed business thanks to her."

Kank announced his return to the surface with a cry. A cry that was also accompanied by a growing, _huge_ ball of black energy centered around his fist as he came trying to crash it down.

Ford tried repeatedly to put him in stasis - all attempts failed, Kank's punch breaking the beam of his ray gun each time.

When Kank's punch connected, it sent a roaring wave of black energy that bounced off of the entire mountainside. Anything living that would have been caught in the blast surely would have been reduced to dust...

Except that the punch connected to something that was not a Keeper or the mountain surface. Instead, the blow was blocked by... something. It almost resembled a shield of sorts, white in color with a red stripe going through it. Odder still was the holder - immediately identified by that signature red hair and green shirt. The shield's holder was pressed to the ground from the force of Kank's punch, and Kank himself flipped through the air before they both managed to land with no injuries. Melody, Darlene, and Stanford all figured that the one that saved them was more important to look at than the one who had just tried to kill them.

"...Wendy?" Ford asked.

Wendy first chose to address said man who just tried to kill the three Keepers. "FINALLY!" She cried. "After four months, I found you! Sup, I'm here to finish what I started back in winter, dog! Where were you hiding?"

All Kank did was scowl at her, only uttering one word:

" _Miyazumi._ "

That managed to get Melody's attention, and to a lesser extent Darlene and Ford's. But Wendy just dropped her smile.

"Urgh, why do you keep calling me that? I keep telling you: my name is Wendy! And my last name is Corduroy!" The latter said, looking like she would have thrown the shield down in annoyance if not for the irrefutable _fact_ that doing so would be a bad idea.

"You're the _exact_ scent I picked up when Stan first came to Fanservice Island!" Said Darlene. "I must have confused you with .GIFfany!"

That just threw even more surprise on Melody.

"G-guys..." she said, "none of you realize that Miyazumi is _.GIFfany's_ last name? Why is he calling you that?"

Kank just blurted it all out:

"Because those two are distant cousins, moron!"

What the fuck? As if this chapter didn't have enough sudden twists, starting from what its title references and just growing from there.

Well anyway, _that's_ probably a good stopping point. So let's move on to the bonus!

* * *

Here's the bonus for Chapter 8:

 _Two weeks after landing on Fanservice Island._

Darlene sighed with a shovel in her hand as she stood by yet another grave.

Finally, she had gotten to the last of them. After putting that tomb off specifically, there she was standing in front of an empty grave. By it, a tombstone. Dedicated to Stanley Pines.

The man it was written in memorium to did not get to see it before his brother did - said brother had walked over to Darlene as she continued staring at it, and Darlene herself had just barely carved out the name. Ford did, in fact, freeze dead in his tracks when he saw the name written on that last grave, even if he quickly figured out what it meant.

"So... uh..." Ford had no idea how to word his thoughs mildly. "You... have some regrets, right? And a... _morbid_ way of coping with things..."

"Yes." She answered. "And yes."

Ford finished that step he was taking, finally being able to let that leg rest as its foot came on the soft grass below him.

"Is there something I should explain to Stan before he sees this? Or... Soos, or Melody. Or even one of the .GIFfanys."

Darlene tossed the shovel to the side.

"Just that I'm confused. I have no idea how to make up for what I did."

"I... I think I understand what you mean."

"No, you don't." The mummy-maker turned to look him right in the eye. "Unless you comitted murder in the past."

"Well- I didn't but- you're right..."

Darlene sighed. "Sorry about almost snapping, but I don't know how I'm going to face the families of everyone I lured in and killed. Even .GIFfany is freaking _Gandhi_ compared to me! What am I going to do? Locate the homes that their parents lived in and say to each and every one of them, 'Hi there, my name is Darlene Chartres and I am a spider monster that killed your son because I didn't like the way he _walked up to me and tried to flirt with me?_ ' I'll be lucky if I get arrested and captured by the government; though if I show my spider-body, they'll just kill me, right on the front porch. And even if they get used to the fact that spider-people... _monsters_ are real - if _ALL_ of them do - how am I supposed to make up for something like death? Killing is irreversible."

"Of the many things I learned from Gravity Falls since I returned from the portal," said Ford, "one that I think would help you and .GIFfany is that, no matter how bleak and impossible something looks, there could always be time to fight back and make things right. If you're honest."

Darlene continued to stare at Stan's empty grave. "...How?"

Ford looked through the line of other graves - stretching far along the sand, barely being bordered by one of the many cities that was built by the Artificial Army. He couldn't even see the tombstone on the other end of the line as a tiny dot.

"That, I don't have the answer to." He finally said. "I'm sorry."

"Well, I still have three and a half months to think about it."

"...So what are you going to tell Stan when you show this to him? I mean, you _are_ going to show this to him, right?"

"I will if I don't just get rid of his tomb right away. I'm ashamed of it already. This was just... 'coping.'"

* * *

Soos happened to come across it next a few moments later. As he walked along the beach and spotted Ford returning to the site, he was surrounded by the Soap, Sound, Poison, and Paint Squad Captains.

Looking through the rows after rows of faux-burial zones, he payed his respects to each one as he passed by. Ford spotted Soos approaching Stan's fake-grave, but barely got out a "Wait, let Darlene and I explai-" before he ended up reaching and reading the name on the stone at the end.

"So..." He tried to put Weirdmageddon _delicately_ to Darlene. "You know, back when Bill tried to destroy the world, we almost had that really happen. He lost his memories and... it was like, he was really close to facing death right there."

"I know." Replied Darlene, a distance back, having already removed the tomb sixteen slots away from Stan's. "I don't know what I was thinking when I built them. I just needed to express this in _some_ way. I can't just keep pushing my past back."

The Soap Squad Captain noticed the way he continued to stare at the tombstone and laughed a tiny bit.

"Oh, Soos, did you think for a second that that was the real thing?"

"Yeah."

She breathed out. "Sorry. Hey, Darlene, maybe if you're going to make a 'stress release' for this... I think a better idea would be if you just talked it out with some of us, first. I think Ford _**might**_ make an OK psychiatrist or physchologist or whatever the right term is... but only because of his PhDs."

"If that fails," offered the Poison Squad Captain with a shrug, "I might be able to help as a last resort if you're really desperate. Some copies say that I am really good at taking what they say. Although... I'm not sure if that is supposed to be a complete compliment..."

And of course Melody's giggles had to be heard. As Melody herself rode in with .GIFfany Prime (and rode in _on_ .GIFfany Prime, as she flew there), _nearly_ completing the group of the Keepers aside from the man whose name was written on the tombstone.

"Darlene!" Shouted .GIFfany. "Did you- wait... wait, you did not."

Melody leaned against it, resting her chest against the side while her arms folded on the top. "You know, I think all of us women here made some mistakes they regret. Maybe we can, like, form some group therapy or something. Because I know .GIFfany has some past demons she can't face until after we're all of the island. We shouldn't just let this keep us sad and not... change? I'm sure there's a better word."

"Oh, really?" Darlene asked. "No offense, but what kind of problem do _you_ have that rivals guilt over murder or abuse?"

"Guilt over the fact that I listened to my ex-girlfriend in the first place."

Soos's eyes popped open.

"Oh, yeah! You don't like talking about her very much..."

She looked like she was about to say something else, but only let out a sigh.

"...And I still don't want you. Nevermind, Darlene. Maybe trying to set up group therapy would be a bad idea."

"Uh... I can... um..." the Poison Squad Captain tried to get in, despite the fact that nobody else was really talking around her at that time.

"Hey, is that supposed to be my grave?" Said Stan with a surprising amount of enthusiasm for someone with that question. "That looks... pretty cool! Reminds me of how lucky I was!"

Everyone looked up the hill, over where he stood. With a laugh, he ran over and began brushing his hand against the half Melody did not lean over.

Melody, of course, backed up a little. Her face flushed red as she shoved herself off and made a half-effort at covering herself, even though it was obvious since Day 2 that everyone already saw everything about her already.

"Nice!" He said. "You got the right details and everything! Darlene, when I die, I want _you_ to be my grave-maker!"

"I-I-" aformentioned nude spider woman tried to state, "that wasn't why I built the graves! I just wanted to show respect, and I swear that yours was- it was out of impulse! I was even going to remove yours!"

"It doesn't matter! You look like you could get a whole job stone-working! In fact, why don't you practice designing one for Ford too? Just make sure they're the same size."

EP UNGE IL M JQLW JMESAG... FC XQF MP OXXQQGK YMMXBZ!  
-SIMPBIVM LQFBA, EHI MLB TBKEBGMKO VYIBBWQ, IDE QPX KOMTX WMILFMRI.

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

More reference notes (so that I don't forget): those light blue-ish haired copies from Chapter 5, the ones that were crammed in the cave, spotted Melody's "moon walk," and ran off to tell 9, are inspired by Nymphs from _Terraria_. And yes, the names of Darlene's victims - as well as Darlene's last-minute added surname - are all from _The Last Man on Earth_.

Anyway, yes, _Escape From Fanservice Island_ 's title officially no longer makes any sense now that they're off the island. I intentionally gave this chapter a blunt title so that people reading the drop-down menu might be like "No way..." I hid this spoiler by being so blunt it would be hard to believe. As if there was some kind of catch. Nope, while I will say that there may be a return to the island (after all, Yellow brought up "activating" the Red Temple), I will say right now that there will not be some sort of "quick snap back to the status quo" where the Keepers just end up back in square one, stranded and fighting among each other. This story is going places. And we're in deep.

Very deep.


	10. Red Moon, Black Sun?

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 9: Red Moon, Black Sun?**

 **Beginning AN:**

Despite being long, this chapter is pretty rushed. So rushed that I can't really think of anything to say in this note becides that it's rushed. Well, enjoy!

I know I said I would fix some things in at least this and RG, but thanks to rushing this chapter, I kind of didn't have the time. I'll try to get it done tomorrow, though.

* * *

The first sense that came to .GIFfany 'apparently Wendy's long-lost distant cousin' Miyazumi upon regaining conciousness was smell, and the first thing she smelled was a liquid that was practically haunting her through the four months on the island and then some.

 _Alcohol._

Smelled good, too. Better than what she single-handedly produced back on Fanservice Island.

.GIFfany opened her eyes and was met with a huge array of purple. Looking just like a recolor of the Fanservice Island Temple stone.

She was in a cell, 'anti-gif rubber' poles lining in stark contrast to the solid stone otherwise around. Bottles and bottles of fancy, well-smelling wine were right by the bars, free for taking. Next to her was Soos, who had barely been regaining conciousness. Nobody else was there - no sign of any of the other Artificial Army members.

Kank Kill was the one to greet them, running from the hall that the jail cell linked to. Not that either of the two captives knew who he even was. He needed to take a deep breath in as he spoke.

"Miyazumi, your _gawd dang cousin_ is really chasing me, so I'll be brief." He said. "I didn't want to have you get captured, but..."

"I do not have any cousins." Said .GIFfany, already examining the lock keeping her in - oh god, _that's pathetic!_ She could burst out at any time! "The Artificial Army is not biologically related to me."

"I wasn't talking about one of them! I meant your other cousin! Gah, nevermind. Look, .GIFfany, the Lightning Cultist is making an offer. If you wish, you and she can live on the next world. Wth me, too, I'll be there. And Rumble."

.GIFfany sighed. "Of course. She convinced Rumble to think she is the good guy, like she did with me. But that was easier, I was evil back then. I am not surprised."

"Yep, you catch on fast." Kank nodded.

Soos had something else on his mind completely:

"Hey, can I borrow your pants?" He asked. "They look really cool. Also, I'm still naked. I had been for four months now. It felt good at first, but now I'm really getting sick of it."

"No! Ask someone else! I am not some kinda walking clothing store, and I will _certainly_ not be removing my lower garments in the vicinity of other people!"

He suddenly moved to the side, barely dodging a blue blast that headed after him. Glancing down the hall, Kank saw Wendy holding Gank's trident proudly, ready to march forward. Kank _finally_ did as he promised: say it briefly:

"Okay, the Cultist just wants to make sure that you don't use your weapons to stop her plan. .GIFfany, she's offering you a chance to join Rumble, Zephieye, and I to the new world - you can survive her pixel... thingy that's she's doing that will wipe out organic life, with Zephieye herself shielding herself from the blast with a one-man barrier of sorts."

"The answer is no!" .GIFfany belted back, as Kank dodged Wendy leaping right to his side and sending a flurry of axe strikes. "I already told you that I changed!"

Kank sighed, still dodging what was thrown at him. "Whatever. I'm gonna go get the other Keepers, anyway. It was what I was _going_ to do before I thought about taking a side-trip to you two."

He ran off, leaving Wendy to strike air one last time before freezing.

She looked over at the two captives. Soos waved back at her.

"So you're naked too." Wendy just bluntly blurted that out. "Just like your friends we haven't seen in months. Hey, uh, it's good to see you again? Hey, pink hair, did you know we're like, related?"

"Kank just told me before you came here." .GIFfany replied. "...Kind of. I was not expecting you when he said my cousin was after him."

"Oh, also, I went to the future or something four months ago - I mean, four months ago was when that thing happened that sent me to the future. I went all over time, but in the _future_ future, the sky was even worse than it is now, and you were there, and you were actually wearing something."

"The sky was worse than what-" .GIFfany was about to ask, then she winced. "Ugh... stupid Cultist and her Blood Moons, I think I know what you are talking about."

"What?" Asked Soos, now the only one out of the loop.

.GIFany chose to both ask Wendy and try to answer Soos. "Let me guess. Blood-red moon? Black sky?"

"Yeah." Wendy nodded. "But in my future-time, it was like, the opposite - red sky and black sun - and you were wearing these cool-looking, like, monk robes or something. If monks wore _really_ tiny skirts and no underwear. No offense, 'cousin,' but your face also didn't look like some depressed edgy artist's self-painting that could make bulldogs cry. You're with Soos. You should probably lighten up a little - here, I can break you out-"

"I can get out on my own." Said .GIFfany, staring down at all the various containers of wine put in front of her. "In fact, I think it would be better for me if I did it this way: by refusing Zephieye's offer, and showing that the drink is off."

She threw one of the bottles straight at the lock holding her in.

"Did you REALLY think I would drink myself in to joining you, Zephieye?!"

Just one spark was sent to the splash of alcohol towards the prison bars. And with that spark, a small flame broke out.

The lock, predictably, deteriorated in a near-instant. It fell to the ground as .GIFfany just stared, only looking away to glance at the other containers of alcohol.

"...GIFfany, are you okay?" Soos had to ask the question burning on everyone's mind. Even .GIFfany's own.

"No." At least she was honest. "Not until I _kill_ Zephieye. If I can even scratch her in the first place, that is."

"...Oh! I think I was sent to the island you were on, too. Like, the same time-crap just threw me somewhere by this cave pileup. I saw this blonde girl that looked a lot like the one with Mr. Pines and everyone else."

* * *

A question Stan really should have considered finally entered his head as the Lightning Cultist continued searching the leaves above him: _Where am I going again, exactly?_

He was cut off from his thoughts when he heard Katjus - _Oh,_ that's _where she went_ \- calling out to the Cultist in a stoic tone: "Yo. Zephieye."

She looked over at a clearing, spotting the teal humanoid. And said troll was mildly glancing over in Stan's direction, which had caused Zephieye's masked head to _slowly_ turn over there, before Katjus's next words glued her attention straight to her.

"I'd like to talk to you about how you screwed my friend out of a good deal, and what a stupid jerk you were to him."

"Stupid? Did you just call me _**stupid?**_ " Zephieye replied.

"Yeah. Because you are."

Melody's ex-girlfriend lept from the branch she stood on, stomping to the ground below. Showing no concern or change in tone, Katjus simply turned to Stan and mouthed "You owe me" as she immediately went back to looking at the Cult leader.

Stan could barely comprehend what just happened before two pairs of hands whisked him away, sending him flying through the forest, and ending up by the entrance to the craft. He whipped around as soon as his feet touched the ground, ready to hit-

Oh. It was the Sage-Guides.

He decided not to hit.

"We sensed that the best way to get _deep_ in to the earth to find the Green Temple was through here." Explained Red in a semi-whisper. "You will have to climb down some metal, first. Did you keep your magnet gun?"

"Of course I did!" He replied with a grin, taking it out of his inventory.

Yellow clasped her hands together, causing her eyes to sparkle again. "Oooh, I'm speaking to the Green Sage-Guide telepathically right now! He's trying to hide it, but I can just tell he's _so_ happy that we're about to set him free!"

As Stan already began making his way down the ladder, his expression became considerably more neutral. "Wait, 'he?'"

Ignoring that, he simply used the magnet gun for the rest of the way down that first built-in ladder thing, and started to glide through the passages of the Kank-broken spacecraft. the Guides had to enter and exit their gaseous forms just to get around that.

Getting _to_ the square opening to the Green Temple was easy enough, but it was after jumping in that Stan's body, mind, and soul all just kind of froze.

He heard chanting. And saw violet glowing. And smelled... some kind of candles burning? Scented candles? Pinneaple, to be specific? With four of five senses (dread, that's what he **felt** ) being filled with bad signs, Stan just shivered as the two ghostly beings descended towards him.

"Yeah..." whispered the Red Sage-Guide. "It makes sense. Someone like her would have guards stationed around the remaining Sage-Guides. In hindsight, it is a little strange that she gave up trying to have guards around the Yellow Sage-Guide."

Stan nodded. "Hey, can _any_ part of me that touches the sphere break it?"

"It should. Why did you ask?"

"Well... I've been thinking about how to fight those cult nuts. They've obviously got magic and stuff. Oh, and does it even need to be a 'whole' part of my body?"

"I believe anything that has your 'life print,' which can even include something as simple as a strand of DNA with the destiny charge, would break that sphere."

Stan smirked.

" _Perfect._ "

* * *

"So... uh, all this chanting sure is boring, isn't it?" Asked one of the twelve cultists circled around the green sphere. A high-pitched, nasally masculine voice. Covered in a near-identical outfit to the head Lightning Cultist, only with four slanted eye-holes with red 'pupils' and a vertical line through the entire middle.

"Kind of. But it's not really 'chanting.'" Answered a much lower masculine voice. The mask there was shaped like the Gobblewonker's head, and was even green to boot. "We're just sitting around here trying to keep an eye in this thing. So that the Wind Keeper doesn't get here and awaken this guy."

A feminine groan came from a cultist wearing a purple mask that bore an uncanny resemblance to Zeskit's face. "I _really_ wish it wasn't this Guide, though. He's ugly as hell. That Red Guide, though. Mmmm... mmm... _MMMMMM!_ I _loved_ looking at _her_ when we had missions to Fanservice Island." The figure looked down, placed a hand between her legs to cover a spot that became slightly darker, and shrunk back, sitting down.

"Ha!" Laughed the first speaker. "Kimberly, are you _still_ not wearing anything under those robes? Not even underwear? We already know how _obvious_ it is when someone going commando under there is excited!"

"Shut up, Kenny!" Said the (male) troll-masked cultist (male as in the type of troll, not the identity of the wearer), squirming around. "It's not like _you_ never went bare and got excited yourself! It gives your robe a more obvious point than our bird-masks! _Especially_ when we go to Fanservice Island! I saw you staring at .GIFfany's carving on the wall!"

The second one to speak began to sit and shrink back himself.

"Uh, could we please stop talking about Kimberly's being wet and naked under her thin, fragile robes and getting hot and bothered at her lesbian fantasies with the curvy, big-breasted naked red giantess? You know we should be expecting Stan, Ford, Melody, and Darlene to come bursting in here at any minute. Possibly even with the Guides. They'll laugh at us when they see nine robes with tents by the front and three with glaring wet spots. And coming from a guy who was all-business, I know how horrible being laughed at by your competition is." He, too, shied down to a seated position.

"Souma," said Kimberly, "that's assuming everyone around here is wearing nothing but their robes right now. I know for a fact that Zephieye, while she isn't here right now, _she_ at least dresses fully under her outfit. That stupid red and black edgy Satanism stuff."

The ten who were still standing just sat down.

"Wait..." asked Kimberly, "ANYONE?"

They shook their heads. Kimberly laughed as her arms shifted, apparently forgetting to cover herself and completely revealing her fluid-stain. Then again, this story 'showed' .GIFfany covered in semen, so it's not like a tiny wet spot would automatically bump up the rating any more.

"Well, at least I'm not the only one."

"...Honestly, I think it would be hotter if you were." Said a clear-masculine-voiced cultist who's mask was seemingly a paper place with a car drawn on it. "I've always loved it when groups had just _one_ token naked person."

"Takumi, stop thinking about me that way. And cover your crotch better."

"Says the woman who admited she enjoys staring at the ass of an _artistically-_ naked goddess."

"Touché."

Kenny clapped his hands over his masked face.

"We're all nerds, aren't we?"

A short distance away, the Yellow Sage-Guide was practically prodding Stan's shoulder.

"Um, Stan?" She asked. "What is your plan? I saw you doing _something_ to a piece of this temple, but I didn't get a good look..."

He answered by throwing what looked like a seemingly 'ordinary' chunk of green temple-stone at the sphere. Surprisingly, the rock was able to crack the sphere despite everything else in the story implying otherwise. The twelve cultists immediately got to their feet, and as the conversation had implied, all of them were blatantly aroused at the moment.

"I, uh..." Stan was clearly trying his damndest to find a reason to be proud as he explained his plan. "I put my spit all over that rock! So uh... the DNA in it, that's what activated... you guys really are nerds. And not so much the 'cute nerds' like my nephew. Like the kind people might think about getting restraining orders again. I should know because I've had restraining orders placed on me. And there was _one_ that _I_ put on this guy that-"

He finally noticed the carving of himself on the wall.

"WOAH!" He shouted. "My penis is _not_ that small!"

I will say right now that the speaker of the following word was the Green Sage-Guide (this would be obvious on a website that allowed colored text, as the word in quote marks - and the quotes themselves - would be in green), speaking just before his trapping bubble released him completely: "What?!"

Even behind the masks, Stan could tell that the cultists were in a panic as they scrambled over to their previous barricade of violet-tinted rocks. The one that was supposedly Kenny stuck an arm out with the palm facing it just as the room filled with light once again as the sphere shattered, yet he could be heard shouting **"BARKAIAS NUX!"**

With the lights dimmed, the stone blocking the way to the transporting area was no longer glowing, and the cultists were already using some sort of green amulets Stan's nephew and niece might know a little more about to quickly move all the debris out of their way. They dashed to the red transporter circle as the Green Sage-Guide began to stretch out as if he had simply woken up from a good nap. Holding the appearance of a giant, green, middle-aged man with a small and shriveled ass and a modest-sized fig leaf over his junk, he could barely look towards the person that freed him before his eyes were taken by the Yellow Sage-Guide.

Specifically, the pair of _enourmous_ yellow breasts that bounced happily as the Guide came _barrelling at him at full speed._ He could only let out one cry in horror:

"BWAAAAAAAAAH!"

Yellow tackled him, sending both of them flying to the ground. As they did not have that much room considering their size and the temple's dimensions, the two gods were sent to the far wall - shattering it, getting covered by the dirt and vines on the other side.

"Green, I'm so happy you're finally free too!" The Yellow Sage-Guide cheered, not just nuzzling his neck, but her overall motions also rubbing her breasts against his head a _lot._ "We are going to be reunited in no time!"

"Th- that's good, that's good!" The newly-freed one replied. "But I uh, thought we had an established hugging rule!"

Yellow finally released her grip on him, but balled her hands together by her shoulder. "Oh, sorry!"

Green groaned as he attempted to get back up.

"So uh," Stan asked, "do I get a fancy sword like Soos and .GIFfany?"

"Who?" Replied Green. "Uh, are they- oh wait, now I remember. Yeah, Red told me who they were telepathically. The Fire and Light Keepers, and you're the Wind Keeper. Hm... uh huh, you got my... uh, 'Diminished Glutes Syndrome,' I see."

"Yeah, the tiny ass?" Which, by the way, was definitely green at that moment. "Good to know that's one thing we have in common." Stan could barely say that with a straight face. "And that carving of me... I still can't get over how, you know, _inaccurate_ it is..."

Green groaned again. "Why do we all have to be naked, again?"

"Hey, I don't mind!" Replied the Red Sage-Guide with a giggle. "I love feeling the breeze all around me! And having a giant body means that I can feel more! But... some people don't like being around naked all the time as much, and I think the Dark Keeper, Melody, is one of them."

"Yeah, yeah." The Green Sage-Guide lifted his head and arm up so that Stan was completely out of his vision, and from his POV his own arm shielded his eyes from the sight of the gigantic breasts of the other two Sage-Guides. "Hexagram Emergency and destiny and what-not. Look, Red, what you said about this 'Zephieye' fella sounded really urgent. Stan, I'm gonna give you the sword you are expecting. After you're done with Zephieye, then we can talk about activating the temples. But until then, there's no way we're doing that as long as someone that powerful and capable of knocking _us_ out is still around. We're kind of afraid of her hijacking the entire temples and getting unlimited power if we raise them at their full strength from the ground."

"The Lightning Cultist knocked _you guys_ out?" Asked Stan. "How and _when?_ "

"Oh, not Green," Red elaborated, "but Yellow and I were knocked out by Zephieye's anti-supernatural attack on the ship just before it apparently crashed. When we woke up, one of the side-cultists was kind of nervously prodding us. He said that Zephieye wasn't sure what to do with us, since we're not a threat without you Keepers around to actually be our arms and legs while we recover full power. And based on what the Anti-Sage did, we can't _really_ recover full power until after all six of us get together."

"Anyway," Green finished, "Stan, it would be important for you to take this as soon as possible:"

He focused as well. Leaves began to appear in a tiny group in front of Stan, one by one, carried by winds. Within a split-second, they all clusted together and began growing in to something else. A huge group of green-ish flower petals and a massive amount of wind burst from the cluster, many fluttering out to the wind but several staying to continue to morph and eventually become a single giant green blade, floating in front of the Keeper. As with .GIFfany and Soos before him, Stan grabbed the sword, and its blade was soon covered in a minuature tornado.

 **YOU GOT THE WIND KEEPER'S BLADE!**

 **A legendary weapon that was hidden within the cracks of Earth. Blow everyone away, build your own garden, or both with a single swing! Powered by propane and magic.**

"YES!" Stanley cheered. He thrusted his sword skyward, instantly awakening a cylinder of wind to rise up. "Now I can save my son- uh... Soos, and stop that Cultist from turning everything black and red like some bad horror story. Now, who's with me?"

The Sage-Guides exchanged glances.

"Actually..." Said Yellow. "We were thinking about it telepathically, and... well, we think it would be time for us to get in to position to _quickly_ activate the temples, since we Sage-Guides can just do that by ourselves."

"Huh?"

"Well," Red explained, "I forgot about activation until we already rescued Yellow. And back _then,_ we were sticking around to see you at least try to get back home. Now that we're under pressure, _and_ after we safely escorted you to the temple, well... now Green can go to the very bottom of this temple, Yellow can warp to hers, and I can fly all the way back to Fanservice Island for mine."

"So I'm by myself..." Stan said. "Good. Let's do this!"

"Well, you don't have to be! Here, Yellow, Green, let's make a short-hand communicator together!"

All three spirit-beings closed their eyes and clapped their hands together. Each of them glowed their respective colors, and the ground even started to shake...

Then suddenly everything stopped, and the handle of Stan's Blade just flashed twice.

* * *

Neither .GIFfany nor Soos even noticed that their Blades did the exact same thing, just two quick flashes.

* * *

"Okay," Red explained, "we added a feature to your Blades that will allow them to communicate with the Guide that made them. So, if you want to talk to the Green Sage-Guide at any moment, just talk in to your Wind Keeper Blade."

Green turned in to mist, except instead of going in to his respective Keeper, he navigated the cracks of the room's floor and went down. Yellow and Stan both bolted to the recently-opened transport room, with Yellow diving to the pad to her temple and Stan going for the one to the original ship. Sighing, Red just spent those moments floating in place.

"Navigating to Fanservice Island from here is going to take a while... and be so boring..." She said to herself, before flying off.

* * *

Melody and Ford both shivered.

It was still technically 'day,' yet the early-spring air combined with whatever Zephieye's still-present 'Blood Moon' magic was to make the place _unbearably_ chilling. Darlene managed to brace against the naked cold a bit better, but she was still ultimately unprotected, and flinched when a Cultist nearly shone a violet light on her from past a tree.

"Where do we go?" Melody whispered to Ford. "Everything's blocked! This is like my nightmare come true."

 **"By the way..."** Everyone within the town's boundaries heard the Cultist's voice at an even volume. An unsurprising, low-level spell Melody was _far_ too used to by that point. **"I want to make an addition to my fellow Cultists. If you see my ex-girlfriend, Melody Seeren, I want you to do something extra. Take your photo-runes, snapshot her, and insta-post them** _ **alllllllll**_ **over the Internet!"**

Melody completely froze up at that.

* * *

Elsewhere, within a set of purple tunnels, a certain red sword nearly exploded in to enraged flame, and a certain yellow sword nearly became blinding with furious light.

* * *

And towards another direction, within the red room that its holder had warped in to not too long ago, a certain green sword's durability was tested as its owner gripped the handle hard, causing thorny branches to stick out from it.

"That's..." said Stan, "my DAUGHTER IN LAW YOU CREEP!"

He dashed forth down the hall, managing to kick up an impressive amount of dust on his way and coming off looking like Road Runner if anything.

* * *

"So uh..." Soos asked after managing to calm down from Zephieye's comments. .GIFfany, on the other hand, was still fuming. "Wendy, where did you get all that sweet gear from? I'm sorry, is 'sweet gear' even a thing people say anymore? I've been away from society for so long, I think I know how Ford felt when he came out of the portal. Oh, imagine what _Ford_ feels now that he has to catch up _twice..._ "

"Some guys." Wendy began her reply with that. "Yeah, this 'Great Zephieye' has an army of people with similar names. I took 'em all out. Well, except 'Kank Kill,' he's like the worst. And there were six more of them that were hiding out - they all have the name 'Wank Will,' just with a different middle initial and a different 'direction.' Yeah, 'Wank Will of the West, of the East, of the North, the South, the "Up," the "Down," and of the "Center."' Don't ask, I don't understand either."

"Okay... also, did either of you heard what I heard? From the Lightning Cultist."

"Yeah, she's trying to blackmail Melody or something. It's sick. I can help you guys find her. And that's the Lightning Cultist? Wait, she's the same person as the Great Zephieye?"

.GIFfany nodded. "I found out yesterday that she was also Melody's ex-girlfriend. I did not know the Cultist's true identity until then."

"So she's the cause of those -Ank guys, used to date Melody, _and_ she's the reason why you're able to walk next to me right now?"

.GIFfany nodded.

"Wow. She must have a lot on her hands."

"Yes. A lot of _blood._ "

* * *

"AHA! I found you!" Stan cried, pointing his plant-y blade towards a group of Cultists - bigger than the one he found at his temple, that's for certain.

They turned to look at him and...

Immediately threw their hands in the air.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Stan recognized from the voice that that one was named 'Kenny.' "We're on your side now! We had _no idea_ Zephieye wanted us to do that!"

Stan lowered the arm holding the sword.

"Really?"

"Yes, yes, yes! We think violating someone's privacy like that is disgusting! I mean, sure, we tease and joke about each-other, but... but... how can we prove this?"

"Take off everything you're wearing."

Dozens upon dozens of pale blue robes hit the floor. With the exception of a frail woman with boxer shorts (which went next), every single one of them was bare.

"HA!" Cheered Kimberly. Since revealed as a heavy-set woman with pale skin and yellow-blonde hair. I should elaborate that said hair was both on her head flowing until just above her large butt, and forming a giant triangle on her crotch that Stan initially mistook for a yellow thong. "I _really_ wasn't the only one!"

Stan took a camera out of his inventory and snapped a picture of them.

"If I _**ever**_ see Melody's naked self on the Internet and she didn't make it _**crystal**_ clear that she sent that on purpose, I'm posting that on the web."

"Okay." Kenny replied.

"And I'm kicking the ass of every single one of you."

"Oh! Well... can we put our clothes back on, now?"

"...You know what? No. Don't. We've been like this for _four months_ now thanks to those stupid bugs. I want you to know how Melody felt over that time. You're not getting re-dressed. In fact, give those robes to me. Judging by how your boss could be on Fanservice Island after the Cloth Moths went active, I'm guessing it's tailor-made to be immune to those things. So even if we _do,_ for any reason, go back to Fanservice Island, those things will still keep us some cover."

"That would be a bad idea!" Kimberly continued. "Th-these thigs are set to explode if they touch someone other than their wearer! You can ask Zephieye herself, she's honest about that sort of thing!"

Stan scanned the piles of clothing up and down.

"I _might_ risk it... if I actually felt uncomfortable going around naked." Stan shrugged. "But hey, I've been naked on TV four times now - and two of them were last summer. But Melody _hates_ being exposed. Do you know how long it took on Fanservice Island before she gave up covering herself around us? Even after that happened, she's still really reluctant to be around my brother or me. Or even Darlene. And you know how comfortable women are being naked around _each-other_ , with their naked sleep-over pillow fights. According to the .GIFfanys."

* * *

 **"Melody."**

That was Zephieye's voice. No matter which way she turned - no matter which way Ford or Darlene turned - it felt like the head Cultist was _right next to them now._ But the words of the lightning lunatic were clearly only aimed at one of them.

 **"Melody, wherever you are, I will find you."**

Melody sank further in the bushes. Why why _why_ can't she just be left alone by that psycho?!

 **"I was just informed that my entire cult had turned against me for my challenge to broadcast you over the internet. Well then. Maybe my doppelgangers will do the trick. Not as** _ **neatly**_ **or** _ **quickly,**_ **but it will provide the added intellect that comes from multiplying me."**

As she finished that statement, a number of slightly transparent images of the Lightning Cultist herself filled the forest. All of them glaring down at some random tree of some sort.

 **"Stanford, I hope you are happy. Your brother just got his Keeper Blade, and now I have one less thing to worry about."**

Ford's eyes moved around. Which ones were the fakes were obvious - but he had no real sign of where the genuine Cultist was, and so he groaned.

 **"But of the things I** _ **do**_ **have to worry about, namely you screwing up the last part of my ritual, I am putting full attention to it."**

One of the doppelgangers showed up right by the group, almost close enough to breathe right in to Melody's ear.

 **"Okay. I think I found you."**

"Back off!" Melody yelled, just as the mask of the copy flashed white. However, Melody herself had left the field that was hit with the flash - on board the hijacked ship, Zephieye looked in to a collection of floating rectangular images appeared in front of her. Many of which were of runes, and many of which had the same palette of the usual six different-colored stone backgrounds. The one at the bottom-right, however, showed empty forest. No signs of Melody anywhere.

Groaning, Zephieye deleted that image.

Below, Ford and Darlene looked to see that Melody had lept clean across a relatively clear trail in the forest, and it was through that trail that the Zephieye image looked around.

 **"Oh, screw it!"** She shouted. **"I'm just going to break this place up! I know you're fast, Seeren! You could have been clear across the town by now!"**

Melody wasn't. She was still across the trail, mouthing 'RUN!' to Ford and Darlene. Neither of them followed her order; they both stayed, thumbing through their inventories for something to use on the hologram.

None of that changed the fireball that rose from the Cultist's image blasting that particular part of the Gravity Falls forest.

The earth was not carved in too _far_ or especially _wide,_ but her attack did go _deep._ A massive scar on the land was formed, parting Melody with the last two swordless Keepers, all while the Cultist image looked back and forth between the two sides.

"H-hey!" Ford nervously cried out. Once multiple Zephieye images started appearing around him from that comment, a part of his brain told him that he did not have that much more time to live. "I-if you want to do these things to someone, pick me!"

The illusion turned to face him.

"You stay out of this." She said. "Melody and I have _far_ more of a history than I do with you, and it's not even her that I _really_ want to deal with right now. Although I will admit that you could serve as one _heck_ of an inspiration, what with your interdimensional travels. I _do_ wish to go through whatever portal device you can set up, and maybe reach the virtual world from there."

"Not a chance!" Ford snapped back. "I will not risk another interdimensional cross like that! Thanks to you and Pyronica, I am _still_ fighting against the results of the last one!"

"If I _do_ make it to the virtual realm, then maybe I will _not_ have to manually bring it over. A portal could greatly boost my chances of finding it; portals created through the weirdness stone of the temples only links worlds that are familiar."

"...Even if it means getting rid of you, it will still be a risk that-"

"Wait a minute." Said Melody, who stood up and immediately clapped a hand over her mouth upon realizing that she had just given herself away. "I mean... you should have ignored me?"

She took back off in to the forest, tripping over a loose root in the process. Before she even fell to the ground, Zephieye beamed right in front of her.

The _real_ Zephieye.

"And where the hell do you think you're going? You just saw that I _am_ everywhere."

Melody tried to move away while still on the ground, feeling the effects of a cold stone having scraped against her naked leg. She fought back against the sheer sting of it, looking at the evil ex in the eye. Harder as it was twitching in pain.

"I could leave you! I could leave the island! I could leave you again!"

Melody attempted to leap up, to deal another strike at her as she did in the Red Temple. Yet all the Lightning Cultist had to do was move back, using a telekinetic push to shove her in to a tree. Shortly following that, Darlene and Ford were both also lifted in to the crack that was formed from the prior blast.

The Keepers of Soul and Water held on to the canyon, but it was not enough for the latter. Ford slipped and fell, nearly as he did in the Red Temple on his first day in the island. With a web, however, Darlene was able to just barely get a hold on him.

"Before I _properly_ humiliate you, as I had already won..." the head Cultist began, "I will first have a little _fun_ with my victory."

"Movie villains always do that!" Melody tried to retort. "It never ends well for them!"

"Shut up and let me brag for ten minutes! You know how I love talking about my great achievements, and how it is a sign of a normal ego!"

Zephieye stuck a hand out, causing an invisible force to push Melody straight in to the nearest tree. From their angle, Ford and Darlene were unable to see that exact action, but both of them cringed.

"Hang in there..." said the latter of them. "I think I can get us out _and_ stop her from attacking Melody."

"You will _not_ hang in there," Zephieye snapped as she floated towards the mega-ditch, "and _nobody_ is going to be 'saving' Melody!"

"Technically, I didn't say 'saving,'" Ford attempted to correct, "but-"

"ARGH! ENOUGH! MY APOCALYPSE WAILS BY NEXT MORNING! And forty-nine days past that."

At least she gave a proper time limit. ...At the cost of also accidentally making an awful reference to that awful _Zelda_ CDI game.

Zephieye instead threw her attention to Ford, lifting him up telekinetically.

"You listen right here." She said. "This is just between me and Melody right now. Not you." She glanced towards Darlene. "And CERTAINLY not you!"

She punctuated that by throwing Ford on Darlene and further down the self-made canyon. Both of them scraped against rocks, Darlene trying to keep a hold on Ford and using her tough giant-spider carapace to minimize the damage caused by the earth... and later, the metal.

Darlene stopped keeping her eyes shut when she felt the change in material. Yes... instead of rough, grainy rock chipping away at the Author and nearly knocking off his glasses, the fall became more smooth, cold, and... stuffier. In fact, it even shifted angels; they were now sliding against a metal slant that was threatening to push them towards the large, broken expanse of Crash Site Omega.

Upon hitting the 'slide' portion of the metal, Darlene's ass was the part that took the hit. She cringed a bit as she still kept Ford in her hands, yet managed to find the strength to shoot a web at a half-intact pole and use that to keep her and the Keeper of Water stable. Ford coughed.

"M-Melody..." he said. "We need to get back to get... Melody. She should not be alone with..."

"I know. I'm thinking of a way to get us back up there."

"And Stan... I want to know... if he's okay."

"That too."

"Soos and .GIFfany, are they..." He blinked, taking off his scratched glasses to get a better look at them. Coughing a few more times, his speech gained coherance after that. "I'm not sure which one to look for first. Melody is _definitely_ in danger right now. Soos and .GIFfany are locked up, and are _likely_ in danger. Stan is..."

"Stan's probably fine." Darlene used her free hand to give a dismissive wave. "He can take down me. He fought that Arcpigsker. And that's just what I saw with all seven of my eyes."

Token 'I thumbed through a wiki' brag time: Seven = two human-form eyes + four spider-form eyes + ?

Ford took a deep breath out, looking around at the remains of the space craft. And, mentally, staring at everything it had to do with the past journey of his life, and present journey of the world.

"I know, but... could we try to get his help? Zephieye announced that he just got his Keeper Blade."

"Yes, and who knows where he is?" Asked the Arachnimorph. "I'll try to work my way back to the surface. If we're lucky, Zephieye thinks we're dead, and isn't looking for us."

* * *

"Say it." Stan said.

"I-I-I-I..." Replied the lanky, trembling man with short brown hair.

A green, windy sword was moved towards his back.

" _Say it,_ Kenny."

He moved his fingers around, bringing up some sort of azure glow. He spoke in to it.

"Attention all Cultists except for Zephieye." He said. "Stanley is holding us hostage, with his Keeper Blade in hand. If you think Zephieye's promise to expose Melody all over the Internet was heinous, gather to the hexa-ship fusion immediately and remove all clothing on the way. This is an act of surrendering, or else Stan will kick your ass even if Melody does _not_ make it to the Internet. We already left this battle, and we already lost it."

It seemed that they all feared the Blade too. Cool. Within less than a minute, the larger red room of the ship-hybrid's Fire Keeper Temple Sector was filled with several more individuals in pale blue robes, and soon those robes gave away to bodies of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Kenny clasped his hands between his legs as all the undressed Cult members began covering themselves - notably, the extended group's women appeared to outnumber the men, provoking the following response from that announcement-maker.

"Oh, why did there have to be so many women? All these shy, embarassed, _naked_ lesbians _barely_ using their arms to hide themselves... I don't think I can last that long."

Everyone's attention was grabbed when they heard sparking noises from the wall to Stan's left, by the space between him and the bigger, newer crowd of Cultists. Green sparks, contrasting nicely with the red walls of the ship that was _not_ the exact opposite color and if you insist otherwise the Paint Squad Captain will gladly correct you.

Speaking of Squad Captains, it was the Plant Squad Captain that then emerged from the wall. Which was achieved through _breaking_ past the brick outright, revealing a system of wires behind it. She left ass first, her pink butt landing on the ground and being witnessed by all of them.

"Oh, fucking shit!" She shouted. "That code was a goddamn pain in the ass to decipher! That stupid bitch deserves to be decked in the cunt for putting us through it! And... wait, wasn't 'Kank' the one that kept us in those programs? Tried to lock us down? I'll kick his cock _so bad_ when I see him..."

She looked around, noticing the naked Cultists. Her eyes did not widen until she saw Stan, which caused her to blush.

"Oh, sorry you had to hear that I actually swear a lot when non-AIs aren't around." She said, rubbing the back of her head. "But yes, Zephieye tried to lock us in some stupid program to keep us asleep. We broke out."

"'We?'" Stan asked.

Thankfully, it was only the 'main' other thirteen Squad Captains (read: first-gen professors from _run:gifocalypse_ ) that left at that time, preventing a huge .GIFfany flood from crushing everyone. One by one, the technicolored copies chaotically dove out, most of which fixed their eyes on Stan's sword.

The Earth Squad Captain lifted her pale body, pumping her arms up above her orange hair.

"Oh, hey man! This is sweet!" She cheered. "Everybody here is _NAKED!_ Yeah, embrace nature you all! You're naked! I'm naked! He's naked! She's naked! All of us, bare, under the Great Holy Sun! Where we may nurture like flowers!"

"Wait," Stan asked, "you girls-"

"Women." Corrected the Weapons Squad Captain.

"- _Were_ .GIFfany in a way, right? And you knew about the Lightning Cultist? Do you, by any chance, know how big the Cult is?"

"Why can't we tell you?" Kenny asked.

"Because you could either be lying and/or just have bad memory. Back on Fanservice Island, these lil' machines could remember anything." He began counting off his fingers: "My favorite drinks, their songs that I like... that's becides the point! Right now, I need to find the others! That stupid Zephieye is keeping them hostage or something! Now, Cult members, are there any more of you?"

"Most of them are by the Purple Temple." Kimberly replied. "W-we'll contact them. Don't worry! I'm sure they'll hate the thought of what Zephieye tried to do, anyway! We're kind of friends to each-other, so they'll understand."

"We could go there right now!" He proudly lifted his sword up. "Melody said that there _were_ some of you right by the warp-thing, but that's not an issue anymore!"

* * *

...Aaaaaand the Purple Temple's warp zone was sealed as well.

"Can't you just break these down like you did with the one in my temple?"

"We'll try."

Oh, right. It was pretty crowded, so some members had to teleport back to let others know if there was enough clear room. But eventually, with the same chant as before, the Cultists managed to break down the wall with ease. Stan was directed to stay back, he chose too as it was less-cluttered for him, and he found the squad captains still standing by the entrance. As the occasional cultist popped in to give the "It's clear!" and zip back, the group soon diminished, until all that remained were Stan and the virtual women.

"Alright!" Said Stan. "Walking in to that purple temple should be no problem now! Not one at all-"

* * *

It was re-sealed for some reason.

"Sorry!" He could hear Kenny's voice through the wall. "We're... busy! Zephieye has something _crazy_ on these people here! She must have expected this! W-we're fine, though. Just go on without us."

And then... a _humming noise_ came from behind the wall. A particularly loud one. Stan took three steps back.

"We're still fine!" Kenny re-assured.

"...I should go." Said Stan, who had resuming back-walking - over to the red pad, which he used to warp back to the ship-hybrid.

* * *

Once Stan returned, he was quick to give the news:

"Welp. It's just us." He said with a shrug.

That's when he noticed the non-main copies showing up as well, slowly gathering in number.

"Did you really think you would just have us first fourteen squad captains on your side?" Asked the Fire Squad Captain. "No, the others just stayed back there to help prevent overcrowding. Anyway, let's look around."

* * *

Finally. Soos, .GIFfany, and Wendy saw the _light._

The light leading outside. Out, on... a special balcony of sorts on the mega-ship hybrid. A platform of stone in the same light blue that made up the majority of Zephieye's wardrobe. In the center lied a number of symbols written in black, roughly forming a giant X made of each of the icons. Towards the center was a small, but slowly growing, black sphere that gave out the occasional spark. And sound of a roar.

"Should we destroy that thing?" Asked Soos. .GIFfany nodded.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!"

And of course those were the words by the Lightning Cultist. Who beamed herself on the mini-'bridge' with them. Soos and .GIFfany immediately got their swords ready, while Wendy kept a tight grip on the equipment she got from the _anks. Specifically, she seemed to have a fondness for Mank's doctor-laser.

"Okay, first of all, redhead." She directed, pointing right at Wendy.

Wendy shrugged. "At least _you're_ not calling me 'Miyazumi.' So, are you the 'Great Zephieye?'"

"Of course I am! What I was trying to say was that you don't belong here. This is not your fight _at all._ I can barely even tollerate having Soos here. Get out."

"Nah."

"Very well. You will hate making that choice soon enough."

With another flick of Zephieye's wrist, Soos and .GIFfany found themselves getting pulled to the ground, while Wendy was telekinetically flung off completely.

"Don't worry dudes!" She cried. "I know away off! I have this parasol that-"

"ENOUGH OF HER!" Zephieye interrupted. .GIFfany was kind of able to hear Wendy saying that her fancy red parasol can slow down her fall, but to Soos her voice just trailed off completely. "This is just between me and the Hexagram Emergency, got it? NO. BODY. ELSE!"

"What's going on out there?" Stan's voice. Followed up by Stan himself popping out of... one of the parts of the red section had a window?

Oh, yes. The red ship had just been kind of 'merged' seemlessly with the purple, forming a sort of... well, calling it a 'head' would imply that there was even a shape to it. The stones of both the entire red portion and the upper part of the purple portion were also adjusted so that they fit... kind of in a symetrical, Tetris-y way. Basically, the point where they met could be loosely described as two capital 'L' shapes inverted from one-another locking in, with the 'bases' of those 'L's extending downwards (for purple) or up (for red).

"Yeah Mr. Pines, it's us!" Soos tried to shout towards the 'tower' portion, using all his strength to fight against the exaggerated gravity. And with that strength, he half-raised and waved his hand. "Zephieye found us, and now she's pinning us to the ground."

"So you're not just lying down there because that looks like a cool place to tan? I'm not joking. It really does. Especially with that black hole right becide you."

"No, Zephieye's just kinda holding us at gunpoint right now. 'Kinda' because I'm sure she has something way more powerful than guns."

"She does." .GIFfany added.

Stan stared at the two for a few moments after that. "...Hang on."

And then the Cultist's eyes were firmly locked on the mini-tornado that made its way out that window, surrounded by fourteen spirals of different-colored electricity. Once the tornado made its way to the platform, Stan emerged from it, Keeper Blade already in hands; the fourteen sparks each turned in to a different Squad Captain.

"Oh, cool!" Said Soos. "You got the thing!"

Stan immediately charged to Zephieye's position, and would have successfully stabbed her through the head had she not instantly zipped to a point in the skies far away from him.

"What are you doing?!" Stan asked. "Why don't you at least try to pin me down?!"

"...Because I can't."

"Why not?"

"That gravity spell can only work on two Keepers at a time! Actually, two people, but I know that Keepers as a whole are more important."

Stan just grunted in response, holding his Blade ready.

Then he dropped to the ground, and Soos suddenly found the weight on him to have become a _lot_ lighter.

"No." Said Zephieye. "Soos, no offense, but in my opinion, you are the least skilled and powered out of my three choices. So I would rather take you on in a fight."

"Okay," he said as he brought himself to a full stand, keeping his hand on his sword. "But I want to warn you. What you said about kinda blackmailing Melody's nudity to the world... I didn't like that. So, I'm gonna come at you in a deep fury? This might hurt a bit, okay?"

"No, what the-"

Using the Blade's power, he dashed away in a shining ball of light, hurling himself right towards Zephieye...

...But he just got swatted back telekinetically, if landing back on the platform without a scratch.

"See what I mean? Sorry, Soos, I really am. Out of all the Keepers, I will say right now that after .GIFfany's _disgusting_ demonstration of betrayal and wasted potential, you have become my favorite of them."

"I can do this all day! In fact, watch!"

The same exact thing happened: He tried to jump towards her, only to get pushed back. That time, however, he turned to the Squad Captains.

"Why aren't you guys doing anything?" He asked.

"...We kind of _are,_ " replied the Weapons one, "as in... just, thinking about _what_ to do next. We already know that she is immune to our electricity. So... we could try our other sort of possessions, but even that aspect is questionable. Also, we are kind of 'charging up' a nice attack. So... you could try to stall her while we do that _and_ look at alternatives. After all, you have a Blade, and we'll just suffer from great holy-damage if we grab that."

Soos shrugged. "Okay, planning something. I got it. Hey, I know! I can stall her by doing the exact same thing I was doing before!"

"Well, that is a little repetitive, but..."

He bolted again, got pushed back again, and Zephieye sighed.

* * *

"We're nearly a fifteenth of the way there..." Ford said, followed by coughing a bit as the dust that fell as his only other company ascended the rock wall, lower half in spider form.

"I can't see daylight." Darlene replied. "Or, creepy red moonlight. Either way, do you think that Lightning Cultist sealed it up?"

"Well, I-"

Neither of them knew how long Katjus had rested herself comfortably against the wall, but there she was. She seemed to have her eyes glued more towards a mirror, checking herself out.

"Yo." Said the 'friendly' troll. "I looked out there, and your friend with the redhair that's .GIFfany's cousin or something filled me in. This is a waste of your time. You'll be able to reach Stan faster. And trust me, he kinda needs your help. So do Soos and all the .GIFfanys."

"But Melody is-"

" _Trust me,_ Melody will be _fine_ if you do as I say. It's Stan and company you should be worried about."

"I mean-"

"You notice that I'm bringing up Stan's name first? That's because I thought that was the best way to get you emotionally. Family that you literally knew your whole life. Well, portal aside. And since you left by the end of high school... no, just who you knew since the beginning of your life and just recently re-bonded with. I thought of bringing that up to get you to just, you know, go. Now please, take that transporter!"

"Listen Katjus, while your intentions might be pure, and I appreciate that, Darlene and I already made up our minds!"

The Arachnimorph even nodded in agreement, to make it clear that Ford wasn't just trying to speak for her.

"We're going to help Melody first," she said, "and that's final!"

Sighing, Katjus finally put her mirror down and rolled her eyes. She then looked around the close rocky walls of that deep canyon that served as the current location of the three.

"Okay, you'll thank me later for doing this."

"Oh, shoot." Said Darlene, with an eye-roll of her own. "I've said those exact words to the pair of girls that this guy was flirting with behind the other's back. Long story."

It felt like the cave cooled down considerably. Katjus's hand began to glow an all-too familiar shade of purple, the same shade associated with the early days on the island and, to a lesser extent, all that psychic-Cultist crap.

She punched the rock immediately behind her, causing the boulder that Darlene clung on to to dislodge itself and fly off, Darlene still on it, and Ford still on her. Both screamed as Katjus appeared to telekinetically pull both of them across the ruins of Crash Site Omega at speeds of Mach Holy Crap. And, following that, through the stone of the Green Temple, and from there they were knocked in to the transporter room. In fact, the boulder responsible for that crushed itself down on the red pad, shortly after the two Keepers were zipped through it.

* * *

Predictably, that last part meant that they were both unable to warp back - the giant rock blocking the path seemed to do more than enough of the trick. After Ford kicked furiously at the parts of the circle, he finally cried out: "Dammit!"

"Well..." Darlene said, also making sure to look around what was technically the same ship she was in earlier that day. "It _is_ your brother, so..."

"It's not that! Katjus outright _manipulated_ us! I knew trusting her had its downside! It just seemed so tempting, back in broad daylight surrounded by the Artificial Army when we knew nothing about what she could really do! But now, when it's just two of us trapped in an underground setting, she of course could show just some of her true side."

He began pacing back and forth. "She's the same species as that beast that tore my great ship and sent it spinning to the beach of Fanservice Island, so it stands to reason that she has the same powers as him unless the troll race has sexual dimorphism. This sort of power includes, even _without_ consuming our 'Hexagram Emergency' energies, some form of being able to possess a corrosive, cold energy... wait a minute! Zeskit knocked us out! Who is to say that Katjus can't do the same thing? They might look different, but there is more than enough evidence that they are mostly matched in terms of skill."

"I really think we should just try to help Stan, at least. You know, start from there. So that he doesn't end up like all the other men I... 'charmed.'"

Ford let out a load groan as he began leaning against the walls of the hijacked vehicle.

"I made the same mistake I made thirty years ago. I trusted the shady supernatural."

Leaning forward, Darlene guestured a hand to herself. " _I'm_ part of the supernatural too!"

"...I know. I'm sorry."

Those were the last words he said before he just started to walk forward, ignoring Darlene's struggle to come up with a response. Except for six words:

"I'm sorry too." The half-giant spider said with a slouch. "About your brother."

* * *

Despite everything getting darker still from the Cultist's influence on the sky, Melody still began to feel less and less hidden.

Breathing heavily and with herself crouched among shrubbery, she gritted her teeth as she made her way further still along the forest. After that time spend hiding, nature had been less kind to her than it had in Fanservice Island's far more open, less-watched atmosphere. Every part of her skin that was pricked and scratched with a thorn or sharper plant still gave out a burning sting with every step. Her slips and falls were met with both another harsh reminder of the land's offense when she was met with searing mud.

"I hate her." She said to herself.

Spotting another illusion-Cultist, Melody quickly thumbed through her inventory and smirked as she brought out a shot gun. Custom-made from the Weapon Squad, she already knew it was useless against the Boundary Guardians before their battle. With the illusions, however, she found out the easy way that it was a nice anti-paparazzi shooter.

Pull the trigger. She had long gotten used to the rather extreme (even by gun standards, Melody had a good amount of practice with 'normal' firearms) recoil brought on by the Weapon Squad's creations, so it was just a matter of bracing her feet and herself in general against the cold, watching as the bullet soon passed through the hologram and made it vanish.

And, as per usual, the gunshot brought attention to a number of other duplicates, three more clones zooming over to the point where the noise was inititally heard. Melody already prepared for that, however - she threw herself on the ground, with the only flaw in that plan meaning that it meant more scrape marks- in that case, a particularly nasty one as her left arm slammed in to a hardened part of rock. She gave a brief gasp as that attack from the setting also caused the gun to slip out of her hands, but with just a breath from her, she grabbed it and fired up three times.

Each shot hit a clone, causing them to vanish.

And as part of the usual pattern, Melody threw the gun back towards her inventory, bolted from her hiding position, and charged forth to a different part of the woods, getting ever-so shorter on breath.

Things changed a bit when she noticed a distinct lack of seeing pale blue among the evergreens and browns of the Gravity Falls woods. That caused Melody to grind to a halt, and look around.

"WHERE ARE YOU?!" Melody shouted. "Don't make my life hell, run away, then come back just to run again! Get out here, you coward!"

"Hey."

Despite that voice not being Zephieye's, Melody still whipped her scratched, battered body, took her gun back out, and fired straight at the voice.

She ended up shooting Katjus so that the bullet grazed past the right shoulder, causing a spurt of bright cyan blood to fly out before the troll gripped it. Melody clasped a hand on her mouth.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I thought you were my ex! ...You might not know this, but since she turned in to a jerk 'for an act to bring our destinies together,' I've _really_ hated her."

Katjus continued to wince in pain, to the point where her right eye was completely shut. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. If I were in your position, and you were in mine, I probably would have shot you too. According to Zeskit, Zephieye was an ass to him."

She used the hand of her injured side to dismiss Melody's attempt to reach over and help with the injury. Sighing, Katjus leaned against the nearest tree. "Then again, he says that about anyone who doesn't worship him, so he's not very reliable."

"No, he's right... well, about that one point. Zephieye is awful. Even if you don't count the fact that she's trying to end the world. I hate her, I _really_ do. And this is coming from someone raised not to ever hate!"

"...Oh, wait, hang on. I think I know a way to get you to the base. Like, fast. I think you might have at least heard of this guy: Hey! Yo! Fire guy with an eyepatch! Wanna listen to Melody's backstory and then help her reach Zephieye where everyone else is at?"

"Wait, 'everyone else?' Ford, Stan, and Darlene are up there too now? And how did you know that?"

Instead of being answered, Rumble just landed right between the two women, fist-first.

Melody flushed, and not just because a fully-clothed man ( _half-clothed,_ but unlike Stan back in _that_ Thanksgiving, it was the important half) pretty much saw her naked. She explained the other reason in the following sentence (and question):

"...I'm sorry, I feel like I should know who you are, but I don't. Have we met before?"

He gasped at seeing her, and then embarassed her further.

"My ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's girlfriend... it is really you. This... this is the first time we met, isn't it?"

"... _Oh,_ Rumble McSkirmish!"

"Humble McSkirmish. But you may still call me by my old name! If it! Is more con-VEEN-ient!"

"Wait, I thought the one from Weirdmageddon and the one that dated .GIFfany were in two different game cabinets."

He turned around, staring at the forest, watching the leaves blowing in the wind. "We are. I was awakened by the wave of weirdness on the second day. I found my other self, and after switching to my only other color scheme, we fought the forces of evil together. And then. I... perished. I heard great things about this 'Dipper' that I only saw a glimpse of. He must have been one of the tiny enemies .GIFfany told me about. And now... I am with you, someone who met face to face with my new biggest enemy .GIFfany. Tell me, Melody Seeren, how did you end up like this?"

"You know how you described me as your girlfriend's boyfriend's ex-girlfriend?"

"Ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend's girlfriend."

"First, it's wife now. And second, I have my own issues with my own ex-girlfriend. Who is also your ex-girlfriend's ex-teacher. And... how do I put this..." Melody blushed even harder, and outright brought her left arm away from covering her breasts to rub the other arm. That one was not budging: this story will still not describe genitals, and acts like they would be hidden no matter what. "Is my and my husband's... current-ish dating partnerrrr?"

"Wait, I am confused."

"I know, it's a complicated love-hexagon."

" _Penta_ gon." Said Katjus. "That's five. 'Hex' is six. You should know that, being part of the Hexagram Emergency."

"No, not at the number of relations." Said Rumble. "How can a woman have a girlfriend?"

Melody blinked. "Holy _crap,_ _**when**_ was your game made?"

"And a girlfriend and a husband at the same time?"

"Okay, _that's_ a legitimate question. We're... kind of... uh, polygamous and that includes me dating .GIFfany and we _totally did it_ but it's a little iffy and I swear she was sober at the time and _I'm so sorry!_ "

"...We are not dating anymore. It does not crush my soul. But I do wonder why you are flirting with evil."

"Alright. Alright. Let me explain. Not the '.GIFfany isn't evil anymore' part, that can come later. You see, I met Zephieye shortly after I turned 18 and we used to date. She was legit sweet. She said that she was struck by lightning when she was really young and thought she heard something, but she pushed that to the side. Then... after a few months... everything went sour. She knew _something_ that suddenly made her rethink the 'voice,' and... she just changed. She tried to use her magic to twist around our relationship... she stole from me, pulled really awful pranks that involved exposing me to the world... I found out that she had control over these things that Ford had called 'Cloth Moths.'" She took a breath in. "Zephieye, I'm sure, was the reason why we couldn't get dressed on Fanservice Island. That place was _full_ of them.

"...Well, long story short, she's awful and we need to stop her. Rumble, can you take us all up there?"

"Oh, there's _no way_ I'm going up there." Said Katjus. "I'm not really _as_ powerful as Zeskit. Close, though, but Zephieye would roast me. Plus, I just don't want to. I'm not _that_ much of an ally."

"I could take you near her," said Rumble, "but I probably do not have the strength to make it all the way up to the ship. I could jump with you in my hands and throw you."

Melody blushed even harder. "Oh... okay, if that's the only way there."

* * *

Soos's next attempt at getting attacked resulted in him getting pushed yet again, only that time, he landed in the arms of the fourteen .GIFfany derivatives.

"Okay, we came up with something." Said the Fire Squad Captain.

"Yeah?" He asked, turning his gaze over to Stan and .GIFfany - both of which were trying to stand up against the pull, and managing to at least get on their hands and push against the ground.

"We have this position we can fly to. We think we can cast some sort of counter-spell to Zephieye, but we'll need someone else to get the electric field just right-"

And that was when Melody was tossed on the platform as well, on a fireball.

Shortly following that, a spider-morphed Darlene lept out, planting herself firmly front and center of everyone. Following that was Ford, doing something that would have been extremely helpful if he had done it earlier in this story: using an adjusted magnet-gun on a shard of metal barely taller than himself to practically 'air surf' his way on the battlefield.

"Okay, this is just getting ridiculous." Said Zephieye. "At first I thought that you could not do anything to delay the final part of my ritual, but you clearly seem to be able to. I should stop going light on you, get off my lazy ass, and hit a _**LOT**_ harder."

And yeah, the word 'lot' was said with that same multi-voic overlay effect. All of the Keepers, and the multiple .GIFfany derivatives, took deep breaths in at that.

The Lightning Cultist threw something in to the air as the moon shone an even brighter scarlet - a tablet. An electronic tablet.

 **"ITULUUMINA DYUUNOAH!"** She cried, before charging straight up, causing her shoulder to break the tablet in a ram. Bright yellow sparks came out of that shattered device, and they all were absorbed in to her body. Afterwhich, Cloth Moths seemed to burst out of the ground like geysers of solid gray, all of which twisted around her and began swarming around her, growing to a bigger and bigger crowd.

"Now... **UNDEAD AGENTS OF DISROBING! THE CARRION OF BARE! I PERMIT YOU TO FEAST ON THESE SCRAPS THAT I HOLD FROM MY INNER DIMENSIONAL POCKETS!"**

She began to float even higher, reaching a point above the tip of the ship-combination. From her sleeves, it seemed as though endless ropes of a similar fabric that made up her outfit spawned. After each broke at the same point and the 'extra hanging out' went back inside to the aformentioned pocket dimension, the moths began to swarm around the floating cloth that was held out in front of them. After feasting every last exact scrap of cloth Zephieye held out for them, they began to turn red, and re-arranged themselves so that they formed pseudo-butterfly wings by the Cultist's back. Wings that were large enough to fall over the entire town, resembling a shifting, crawling, hungry mass of red static. Melody's evil ex glared at the Hexagram Emergency with bright, shining yellow lights beaming behind the eyeholes of her mask, and indeed the two large circles that acted as pseudo-eyes. Which soon had changed from their 'rounded' shape to their angled, 'angry' shape.

On the bright side, Stan and .GIFfany felt the gravitational pull around them weaken completely.

Stan and Ford were the first to make a move. With the former using his Blade to cause a massive updraft beneath the group. The first swing of his sword in the battle brought both a crescent of wind allied with a growing number of sharp leaves flying towards the destination. When Zephieye dodged that attack, yet the Cloth Moths that were moved in to the field were briefly scattered, Stan took that as enough motivation to jump up, with Ford once again manipulating his magnet gun to follow.

Zephieye was barely able to block Stan's onslaught of forest fury with her X-papers. In fact, his sword was able to even tear through some of them, rip by rip, bringing himself closer to her past her barrier of magic-neutralizers. In addition to that, Stan also created some twisting vines and branching wood which floated in the air, allowing for a much larger platform for Ford when he landed.

And Ford's landing was followed by him whipping out a ray gun, firing to the Cultist. Surprising both him and her, that seemed to _work_ to some degree, each of his high-powered lasers causing Zephieye to actually flinch. Once a tiny chip of her mask broke off, she ripped the piece off and stared at it. Then she fumed.

"Do you have _ANY IDEA_ how hard it was to make that?! How much it cost?! That's it! Agents of Disrobing, Carrion of Bare, I told you... **FEAST!"**

And Stan's slowly-growing sky forest was broken up mildly when the 'wings' of bugs broke in to pillars, which stabbed down through the wood. Ford barely avoided having his right leg getting swallowed by the mass - although some of the bugs lightly grazed against the limb, resulting in a series of large gashes of blood and a sharp cry of pain from him. Noticing Ford's injury, Stan went straight for a stab on Zephieye directly, only to be thrown off course by the sight of the wings of bugs 'folding in' on themselves, causing a huge amount of air over Gravity Falls to be surrounded by a sphere of flesh-lusted insects.

Thankfully, by that time, the others had finally become more active. .GIFfany and Soos respectively carried Darlene and Melody on their backs, reaching up to the platform Stan had been setting up. Roaring flames started killing off large chunks of the Moths for every move .GIFfany made, while others were obliterated by blinding light.

Meanwhile, Darlene set up a web between two rather-far branches, turned around to spit acid at some moths, and turned back to already find that the web managed to capture at least hundreds of the fuckers. Probably, and likely, thousands if not tens of thousands. She laughed at that.

"Some times," she said, "the boring things just _work._ "

Melody had a less positive opinion of her experience with the bugs, using every single kind of fire-starting thing she had in her inventory to fan them off, yelling "IT FEELS LIKE YOU'VE BEEN USING THESE THINGS TO TORMENT ME FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE!"

Rounding off the group, sparks of various colors began flying around as the Artificial Army flew through the bug mass, sending entire lightning bolts aimed towards the milliscopic threats, clearing them as well. That resulted in what looked like an inverted storm, with bolts aiming their way towards crimson, corrupted 'clouds' of legs and wings.

Ford and Stan remained in the eye of the storm. While the Keeper of Wind's swings were able to clear out some bugs on their own - impaling them with branches and splinters - he was also aimed at causing more damage to the leader of the tiny army. When Ford finally used a temple-stone claw to outright tear through several layers of X-papers, Zephieye finally made the first major movement she did since summoning the bugs.

"Okay. That's it. I'm running out of these undead things and I'm getting sick of you. And you there! Stans! This isn't even your freaking battle! It's just between me and .GIFfany!"

A ball of fire began to form in front of her hands. Just as Stan tried to move in from above, Zephieye threw it towards him, colliding with his Blade. The result was a circle of fire spreading through the air perpendicular to the sword, breaking to a pre-explosion of sorts that practically pushed the entire atmosphere from where the attack started. Seconds later, a burst happened as all the flame broke up, nearly tearing the entire Ozone layer apart at that point. The .GIFfany copies were barely able to set up electrical shields on the rest of the Keepers to keep them saved. That burst sent Stan at speeds that threatened to take him out of gravitational pull, if not for the return of Zephieye's grip. Stan had lost the sword from his hands, but both he and his chosen weapon were kept in stasis by the Cultist's grip. That is, until the sword found itself being moved above him, and then down through him.

On the bright side, at least it killed the last remaining Cloth Moths.

"Oh, come on!" Ford shouted. "Telekinesis doesn't count towards that rule that anyone grabbing the sword will-"

Stan himself was pushed right in to his brother, knocking both of them off the wood-platform that the former created. With Stan barely able to re-take control of his own sword, he managed to make a current upwards _and_ a pile of leaves to soften his fall on the platform by the ship-combo.

 _Everyone_ looked down at the harmed brother pair.

"I'm okay!" Stan shouted from below. "I'm pretty sure this didn't stab something important! Say, don't you .GIFfanys have healing magic? No pressure, but I think you should put that to use soon..."

Soos was _already_ charging at the Lightning Cultist with that attack. But she only needed to dodge around his slashes, only stopping on occasion to push him back. And that allowed .GIFfany to _also_ sword-fly over to her, giving her the opportunity to slash at the ritualist. An attack that managed to cause a tear in the right arm of Zephieye's robe.

Both Soos and .GIFfany felt themselves froze. In .GIFfany's case, from the realization of what she did, and in both cases, because they were just put in to stasis.

"CHIPPING MY FREAKING MASK IS ONE THING," yelled the electronic commander, "BUT DAMAGING MY ROBE IS ANOTHER INVITATION TO _SUFFER!_ "

.GIFfany managed to fight against the pull just enough to throw a pink lightning ball at her former master. Hey, at least that time, the attack got her to flinch.

"Do you call that a lightning attack?" She asked. A web was thrown as her, but she soon burned it off. "You're pathetic. _This_ is a lightning attack."

Her fist began to give off a full lightning storm in of itself, with several bolts striking near Stan and Ford as they recovered from the prior attack.

More of them hit the ground, causing Wendy to dodge out of the way. As she did, she caught sight of the entire town hypnotized by the sight of the battle raging above them.

"What the _FLYING HELL_ are you doing here?" Wendy yelled to the townsfolk. "Evacuate! She's gonna blow this whole place to Kingdom-"

Then a wave of black energy errupted between her and the crowd. Kank Kill, who turned his attention over to the Corduroy.

"We _still_ have unfinished business, Miyazumi." He said.

Sighing with an eye roll, she raised up that same red-and-white shield from before.

"Okay, fine. Bring it on."

* * *

Zephieye took a deep breath in as she looked at her sparking fist.

"Why the hell do you want this world to stay the way it is?" She asked .GIFfany. "The virtual world is where you are from, and where you belong. Because it is just the _shining_ example of perfection! _YOU_ were the shining example of perfection! Much better than that failure of a girlfriend that was Melody! And yet you give it all up... for what, imperfections such as myself? That world freakin' understood you! Do you think these people here will understand you? Accept you in society? Some self-replicating monster that can hide in any wire, any space in the cyber world, any gap of existence?" She pulled her fist back.

"Fuck you." .GIFfany replied.

"...I thought I found _the_ specimen with you. Turns out I was wrong."

The AI got the fist to the gut, creating an explosion that came out of her back which quickly coned out to the same volume of a skyscraper, with her being in the middle. Each and every .GIFfany that would have been caught dashed out of the way just milliseconds before the attack beamed outward. Enormous strikes of plasma errupted from that point, cracking the sky in all directions. The only sound louder than the crackling thunder was that of .GIFfany's screams, her body distorting and turning to wireframe as additional purple miasma made its way from Zephieye to her. The Fire Keeper's Blade split in half, the top half completely disintegrating in the attack while the bottom half went dull, dark, and lost its heat. At the end of the wrath, .GIFfany's body outright exploded, sending a skeleton and a half-sword flying to the distance. After enough time passed, the two returned from the side of the Earth opposite of where Zephieye punched them, happening to land right by Stan and Ford.

From the smoking crater that the tiny remnants of .GIFfany remained, her body arm stuck itself in the air, raising the bones of her middle finger.

"Finish me off." She said. "I know you can do that. I know you can hear me. Go after me. Not them. They don't deserve any more bad things to happen to them. But I do."

Soos couldn't hear the leader of the Artificial Army, but he still absolutely fumed. He noticed that the stasis effect on him was no longer present, assuming (correctly) that Zephieye forgot about him, and flew over to punch her in the face.

"I was actually thinking about giving you a chance, like we did with .GIFfany!" He shouted. "But then you had to go and _murder her!_ And that was _not_ in self-defense like it was with me!"

"She's not dead. I can hear her taunting me..."

Soos smiled again. "She's... she's alive? She has a chance?"

Zephieye did not answer. Instead, Soos felt that same fist that he struck her with suddenly freezing in the air. Then an unpleasant sensation followed in the thumb. It was being pressed... harder, harder...

He screamed in pain as the force telekinetically broke his thumb bone, bending it far past normal human limits. That was followed by four additional cries, with each finger being snapped to breaking point. He let out a "Please don't..." as he felt his wrist being broken too, and was in tears by the time the pain started traveling up his arm, the force alternating between which exact side it was pushing on his bones.

"Don't interrupt my revenge." Said Zephieye, finally shooting him down to join the other three Keepers. "Ever."

She ended up getting mobbed by the Artificial Army shortly after, each of them deciding to go for a far more physical approach. Zephieye felt the righteous fury of billions of clawing, kicking, avenging women that she had only _some_ trouble deflecting, however, as she found that they were mostly gathering above her, the Cultist was quick to figure out that a simple mook rush was not the only goal they had in mind. It was bringing her closer to the two Keepers who, at that moment, lacked true flight.

"HIYA!" Cried Darlene, leaping on Zephieye head in full spider form and latching on tight. "Guess what? Love potions are chemicals. And guess what? The Poison Squad Captain was a chemist. Guess who figured out how to make more of the control drug, and guess who had mastered how to control other people? All I needed to do was get close enough so my psychic range could actually effect someone as resistant and dark magic-y as you, and..."

Darlene quickly took out some of the mixed, gray-ish potion combination and ingested it, then she lept off of Zephieye and back on the still-floating branch mess. After Zephieye ceased motion below the neck, Melody started grinning like an idiot.

"Okay," said the Arachnimorph, "based on my tests with Weapons Squad Captain, you probably have about five minutes tops. And that's not factoring in that she might be _way_ more trained than Weapons is."

Zephieye found her body floating towards the branch, right by Melody.

"For your information," said the Cultist, "human bodies have a harder time breaking from this. But with my training, as you semi-correctly assumed, I estimate that it will take me about seven minutes."

Melody punched her in the face.

"Ha! Ford's record was six. Stan's was five! And I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with their fingers!"

And thus, for the next seven minutes, Melody, Darlene, and the .GIFfanys that remained above were free to absolutely wail on the Cultist all they wanted.

* * *

'.GIFfanys that remained above' implied that some did not. Yes, a few of them - none of whom were squad captains, due to their established 'captains risk themselves first' rule against Zephieye - floated to the collapsed four.

"She is terrible..." said .GIFfany, still reduced to a skeletal form. "She did this to you, Soos. And Stan... Ford... _I_ did this to you! I should not have listened to her."

"Okay," said Soos, trying to smile despite the pain of his multiple arm breaks, "I think I'm gonna have to do something about your self-problems. I mean, I shoulda seen the warning signs first, but yeah."

He found her skull's eye-holes looking at him. "No, think about it. If I did not try to follow her and stalk you back to the island, we would not have been gathered. And Zephieye would not have been able to use our proxy-energy to help open the portal to summon the Skeltaur Knights. This entire thing was all because I was still my old self. And now... it is too late for me to really change. That is why I turned to alcohol the entire time."

Soos put a hand on her clavicle. "Hey. It's too late for Zephieye, but I don't think it's too late for you."

"No, it is too late for all of us. And there was no time for me at all." She inched to a puddle, seeing her reflection in the unnaturrally darkened day sky. "I mean, look at me. I am still, and always was, a monster at heart. I can only make myself not kill, that was my only change. Everything else... was... I feel so terrible. Look at me! I even look like a monster right now!"

Soos moved near her, looking in to the same reflection.

"Well, that's how you see you. But I see you as someone who already turned her life around but just can't tell yet."

.GIFfany somehow took a deep breath. "Yes... yes... I know. Soos, I thought you and Melody might have been a little too... joyful, optimistic, to really understand the scope of my apology and get it. But I think I finally understand. You are pretty wise."

Soos laughed. "I'm just trying to fix as much as I can."

They both turned away from the puddle, looking at each-other instead.

"Thank you, Soos." .GIFfany said.

"I love you, .GIFfany."

"...I will make sure that my love is real love, and not the obsession I used to have. Soos, I really _do_ , _actually_ love you!"

"Have we ever actually kissed? I kissed the other-yous. So did Melody. And she did a little more with you yourself, kinda. But you kept dodging the issue. With me."

"Because you were my original obsession, I was not as bloodthirsty for Melody. But... well, we can stop dodging now!"

"I agree."

He brought his lips to the boney 'teeth' of the physical form's skeletal body. Bone-arms wrapped around him as he found a good grip on her rib cage with his well-arm, breathing as he tried to bring his tongue in her mouth. They continued holding each-other as they stood up completely, with .GIFfany outright lifting him off his feet to make up for the height difference.

Stan was in complete and utter tears, clapping at the two.

"That was _beautiful!_ " He said. "I always had a soft-spot for seeing young love like that."

That was around the time they noticed Soos's sword was glowing.

"Oh!" The sword's owner exclaimed. "...Hang on, didn't the Light Squad Captain work with some kind of 'healing light?'"

"Yes." Answered .GIFfany.

"And I'm getting some kinda vibes with, like, sword knowledge or something. So... let me try something..."

"Yes!" Said the Yellow Sage-Guide. "Your sword can heal people! Isn't it beautiful?"

"Ah! Good to get confirmation. Also, how come you're talking to me now? Where are you anyway, Yellow?"

"...I will explain later, when we have the time."

Using his working arm, he gripped the weapon, lightly brought it near .GIFfany (who flinched at the sword drawing near), and closed his eyes. The Blade glowed more, and soon .GIFfany's bones began to be coated in a similar brilliant yellow light. Then the light dimmed down.

But after that, her bones started to generate additional tissue, of other types. Muscle, organs, and the like appeared back on her at lightning pace, with skin and hair finishing the process. Her skull soon filled with bright pink eyes again, and had a lush head of fuchsia flowing to her back. Arms went from behind linked bones to fully healed skin, with no signs of injury. Her rib bones pushed out meat that eventually coated over to her full, big titties-

You're probably not in the mood for breasts considering everything that just happened. And if you are, then you're a sick fuck.

Smiling, Soos dashed over to the brothers and did the same with them. At a somewhat slower pace than .GIFfany's full regeneration, Stan's gaping hole was patched up once one of the sword's flat sides was brought near him. As for Ford... he was not as injured, but the Blade still helped get rid of some of his scratches. He also took off his glasses, blinking a lot.

When Soos tried the same with his broken arm, it twitched a bit, and he frowned.

"Hang on, like I said, I'm kinda understanding how my sword works over time..."

"I was too, even without being told by the Guides." Said .GIFfany. "Mine apparently has powers related to time."

"I also have some weird powers that's not just being Mr. Windy Arbor Day," commented Stan, "but I don't really understand it. It's... 'direction' or something?"

"...Yeah," Soos continued, "and I have healing powers, you heard my Guide. It's called something to do with 'life.' But the thing is, it kind of sucks when I use it on myself, so it's gonna take longer for me to heal. I'll try to be back in action as soon as I can, though!"

"That's fine."

"Hey dudes, being able to heal people with this is still pretty sweet. I mean, I would not want it to be the other way around, where I can heal _myself_ faster than other people. You guys deserve to be patched up as fast as you can."

"Soos, I believe your sword also healed my vision." Ford said, suddenly finding it irritating to even look through the glass by proxy. "In fact, I _feel_ about two years younger now. I still have six fingers, though."

Soos leaned over to look at Ford's hands. "Well, that's because your hands are already perfect the way they are." Then he kissed the back of his left one, Ford looking unsure how to properly comment on that.

.GIFfany looked down at herself and gasped. "Younger? Oh, I hope there is a stopping point, because the Weapons Squad Captain would _hate_ it if you had a de-aging power!" She opened a menu, which appeared to list some aspects of her. Name, .GIFfany Miyazumi. Character Age... 21 (born September 13th), _Physical Age_ _ **20**_... whelp, that's good. Same as it was since her actual birthday. So thank goodness it's not complete de-aging, it's probably just for the really old people.

Ford stretched out, looking above at the very distant sight of the gang beating down on a still-stunned Cultist.

"I am not completely sure what they are doing up there," he said, "but we should join them as soon as possible."

.GIFfany nodded, gripped her half-sword, and it ignited back to its original brightness.

"Oh, I do know." She said. "Darlene managed to get close enough to use a potion-mix on Zephieye. Listen, this is my battle, I want to go up there. But at the same time..." she looked around at the three men, "I think I might have finally gotten the fusion element down."

"I'm sorry," said Soos, who would have made an appropriate move with his hands if not for how one was occupied with his legendary weapon and the other was a mess of broken bones, "but I'm kind of out of comish right now."

"Well, not you. We have one _other_ person with a Keeper Blade."

Her eyes met Stan's.

"Wait! You mean...?"

"Yes. Stanley Pines! Let's combine!"

"YEAH!" He pumped a fist up. "BRING IT ON!"

"First, throw your sword in the air."

He did, and she followed with her own Blade, both of them spinning around as the process began: She turned to that same, familiar ring of energy that Soos got to know from the Zeskit battle. Which spun around Stan, getting faster in speed until it shrunk itself in. Then, sparks started to fly on his person.

Stan's arms began to thin just-slightly, his chest started to buldge just a little to form rather androgynous 'breasts,' and his gut sank in to an average, flat stomach that neither had that added belly nor .GIFfany's hourglass figure. Stan's body had grown slightly taller, and his ass plumped out to an average shape. Most notably, the hairs on him kind of enlongated and changed to a dulled shade of pink. One of the most drastic changes to Stan's default was his face, with the eyes becoming partially pink, the head overall thinning a bit, and the nose shrinking a bit. Those and a few more details led to what could be described as the 'average' of Stan and .GIFfany's appearance.

Each sword fell in to a different hand, and, perhaps surprisingly, _neither_ of them reacted violently to the fusion with their Blade 'counterattack.' .GIFfany-Stan's right hand caught the Wind Keeper's Blade, still just as green and fresh and growing with wind as ever, while their left hand caught the stump that was the lower half of the re-brighted Fire Keeper's Blade. And the latter's broken 'spikes' at the end started shooting out flames. Said fire began to calm down shortly, then taking on a more specific form: looking as though it was filling in for the rest of the sword. A few moments later, another explosion errupted from the flaming weapon, and it appeared as good as new.

Then the fusion clasped their hands together, joining forest and flame.

The resulting Blade had a handle that was green for one half, and red for the other. The sword proper slowly shifted between those colors. It initially gave out both a gentle cool breeze yet a comforting warmth at the same time, until both combined to a flaming, spinning mini-tornado that was only as wide as the double-Blade yet tall enough to extend from anyone's eyesight.

In fact, the roaring flames did not reach their peek until they were right around Zephieye's back. Which, of course, got the Lightning Cultist to turn around.

"Awesome!" They said, in a voice that was somewhere right between an old man's and a slightly monotonous young woman's. No, not a blend of them, the average tone and pitch of the two voices.

"...I'm not sure if this is something to be excited over, or... well, horrifying, to be honest." Ford said. "Staney- uh... Stan .GIFfany hybrid?"

The flame tornado died down to a more reasonable height, just barely going over that of the sword.

"Uh... well, you can call me- us, I mean- us, _we_ mean- '.GIFstan.' No! .GIFley. I/We like it because it uses the part of the Stan name that's different."

"Okay... .GIFley... are you sure you want to do this?"

They dismissed his comment with a wave. "We're fine. If either one of us wants to de-fuse, we can! Neither of us are forcing this, and we both agreed to stay together until we kick ass!"

And the hybrid of them lept straight in the air. Both the Keepers associated with blue and yellow were only able to watch from below, gaping at the suddenness of... well, _fucking everything._

"Did that just happen?" Ford asked.

"Yes, dude. Yes it did. And it is the best thing I have ever seen in my life. Mr. Pines and .GIFfany are _glorious_ together."

* * *

"Okay... I think I might have overestimated the time..." said Zephieye, dealing with the swarm of shocks from the closing army of .GIFfanys. Who, of course, also gave Melody some extra space to whack on her. Darlene did not need them to brush aside - she was able to dash her way in and deal a few more hits as well.

...And then Darlene took a swift uppercut to the jaw, which knocked her to a branch and seemingly KO'd her.

"That's it." Said Zephieye, beginning to flash a bright blue glow. "Game over. **FHALLGELIN TRIESHX!"**

Gasping, Melody grabbed a branch and pricked her hand with it.

"Uh... **zelklar... menden?"** She said _just_ as a shockwave broke from the Lightning Cultist.

Said shockwave pushed all the copies away in a blast, causing humanoid flesh to be knocked away in all directions. However, the one with the most ties with human flesh in that particular area was the only one _not_ pressed outward. Melody instead held some sort of transparent, purple shield from the tip of her now-bleeding finger. Zephieye laughed.

"Ah, you're _finally_ using those pain-spells I taught you." She bolted ahead, trying to punch through the shield. Melody replied by blocking every hit, and even managing to strike Zephieye with the weapon hard enough to draw blood from the side of her head, barely before where the mask covered it. Seething at that point, the video game sorceress tried to shoot a burst of energy at her ex. That managed to break the shield, but Melody countered with another spell.

 **"Peelkikman swiyax?"** She 'chanted' with another prick to her opposite finger, making the rough outlines of two giant energy-gloves appear over both hands. She used those to block any move Zephieye threw at her. "I think I already know the answer, but why don't you have to draw blood from yourself? I thought you said that blood _needed_ to be drawn to use these."

"Oh, it doesn't have to be the user's blood. Yeah, I only taught you the self-draw ones to inflict more pain on you. I slowly, unknowingly, take blood from a random cultist in my group. Which... could include you, even if you are no longer a part of the Lightning Cult. Like a mosquito that doesn't cause those really annoying itchy bites. You see, I by the time I taught you, I was already aware of the Keeper of Fire, and I knew I would be leaving you. What I _didn't_ know at the time was that I would not be leaving you for her, but apparently for NOBODY! Because she's a FAILURE!"

"That's half of me you are talking about there."

Zephieye turned around to the source of the voice, allowing Melody to sock her _hard_ in the back, sending her to the pseudo forest's floor. Floating up was .GIFley, who caused their sword to glow a bright green, which seemed to have been the cause of the wood and plants acting as a floating platform to suddenly grow out.

"And also," they continued, "Melody is both my daughter in law and my wife. Wait... that sounded wrong. What I mean to say is, Melody is half-my wife, and half-my daughter in law? Uh... That also means I'm about to sleep with the man I've grown to think of as my son? .GIFfany, we need to defuse and talk about your sex life. No Stan, we should stay until we beat Zephieye. Good point, she's nuts and powerful, two things I hate in a woman, kinda like your old self to be honest. I thought you liked power, because I do. Not when it's used against me. Stan, why would you insult the woman that is in your body and technically 'is' your body? It's just a joke, and I thought I should be honest since we're almost, ya know, sharing a brain and everything. Well... I see. .GIFfany, you _are_ a lot nicer than the _last_ person I shared my brain with."

Zephieye had gotten up alright. And Melody was definitely active. Both were just trying to decipher what the fuck .GIFley, or maybe more accurately, .GIFfany and Stanley at that point, was/were saying. Which is why neither of them made a move during that time.

"Enough talk!" .GIFley both came to the same conclusion. "It is time to finish this!"

They dashed to Zephieye Blade-first, and the combined might of the two swords was seemingly enough to destroy the flimsy paper defense the Lightning Cultist had tried to set up at the last second. With a grin, .GIFley delivered a swift kick to her chest, sending her back. They turned towards Melody, offering a middle-aged hand to her.

"Hey, you suffered from her more than anyone but the sparkly girl half of me. And even then, we can debate that. I think you should join in a bit on this last part."

Zephieye was practically growling at that point, as Melody silently took some blood to chant **"Aerdallus..."** and took floating to the air lightly.

Both of the Keepers (or, the Keeper and the fusion of two Keepers) made it to her position in no time, and while Melody made a starting wrestle, .GIFley was the one dashing around at ridiculous speeds, slashing at her with near-invisibility. Letting out an annoyed cry, the Lightning Cultist broke out of Melody's grip, and things around everyone began to get cold.

Cold because she had a giant ice ball in her hand. Which she tossed below, an action that caused the rest of the .GIFfany Army - which had been watching from trying to float, a bit of a distance below - saw that and immediately began to float down.

Below, Soos and Ford suddenly found a barely-concious Darlene dropped by them thanks to the Antifire Squad Captain, and then Soos barely had time to cram his Blade in his inventory before the four were piled on by copies.

"What are you doing?" Ford asked, in a position so that he once again felt Antifire's bare flesh against his back. The last time that happened was actually early last morning, not way back in the minecart ride.

"Giving you body heat the 'human' way, mostly." He recognized that voice as the Wind Squad Captain, AKA Professor Wendy, AKA that purple-skinned jadehead that gave Melody, Soos, and Prime a short ride to the Red Temple's chamber. "Meanwhile, our heat experts - well, most of them - are going to do so in a more magic way, with a barrier. And a built-in thermostat."

Above, Zephieye clasped her hands on the ice sphere, causing a wave to shoot below. Melody had thankfully floated above the attacking Cultist, but nobody else was really that lucky.

* * *

Below, Katjus stared at Rumble with wide eyes.

"YO!" She shouted, before wincing at her shoulder pain. "I don't know what you're gonna do, but I'm getting out of here!"

She took out a power cell from a similar fur-patch thing as her male friend from back in the island (only, due to having much less fur, she took it from the patch in her crotch, not by her ass), tapped it a few times, and outright vanished. Rumble look at the spot she used to be in and practically weeped.

"But what am I-"

Ice washed over the entire seeing, immediately tearing down every leaf, coating Gravity Falls in another winter. And Rumble, caught from the freezing hit itself, was frozen in solid ice.

A distance away, the crew was more fortunate, with the piling .GIFfanys having an energy barrier set up to minimize the chill. In the center, the three Keepers still felt a bit of a frosty breeze despite the Fire Squad Captain (from the top of the pileup) trying to send a toasting heat wave through the pile, and even with the layers upon layers of skin keeping the group warm.

* * *

Above, .GIFley took the direct hit from the frost, yet kept a tight grip on their double Blade of Wind and Fire. They grinned as the ice barely had any effect on them.

"I've had enough!" The Cultist yelled. "First of all, defuse! I said this already, but this fight is just between me and .GIFfany! And maybe Melody, too!"

She punched them with a fist coated in electricity, a force that just about ripped the two bodies to split - .GIFfany emerged in bright light, and .GIFley's body quickly shifted back to that of just Stan's. However, both were grinning, especially after Stan got a few more final punches in to Zephieye.

"I said _GET OUT!_ " She shouted, kicking him with enough force to send him flying downwards.

Stan did not try to float back up. Instead, he just waved at her.

"You're about to get your wish. Haven't you heard about distractions? In fact, I brought this thing with me since the beginning _just in case_ something like this happens:"

As he made his fall to the .GIFfany pileup, he opened his inventory, took out the World's Most Distracting Object, and spun it.

And Zephieye kept staring at it as Melody came up behind her, holding a vine from the wood platform in her hand.

"I know how to distract you even more!"

And then she wrapped the vine around the Cultist's neck, pulling hard to attempt to strangle her. Considering Zephieye's demonstrated feats by that point, it was hardly a shock that she was not too responsive to the attack, instead her eyes were just darting around.

"Urgh, let go of me so I can finish dealing with .GIFfany! And once I am, I'll send your naked body _globally,_ and you will be _muy embarazada!_ "

"The strangling wasn't a distraction, but _this_ is: embarazada means 'pregnant,' idiot! Not 'embarassed!' ZEPHIEYE SMITH...

"YOUR.

"SPANISH.

"SUCKS.

"RAW.

" _ASS!_ "

She effortlessly broke from the grip of the vine, and instantly made said plant-part rot away to a shriveled brown rope. As she turned to face Melody, clouds formed behind her, also obscuring .GIFfany completely. Zephieye's eyes shone brightly as she faced down Melody - except the Mystery Shack staff member felt no fear at all from the way the glowing outline of a chainsaw was formed in the Lightning Cultist's hand.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY SPANISH?! THAT'S IT! NOW I REMEMBER THE REAL REASON WE BROKE UP! YOU ARE _SUCH_ A KNOW IT ALL-"

She suddenly shifted her attention to .GIFfany, except that was because the virtual student/captain had tossed her Blade through the clouds, impaling the Cultist right through her back. She ceased all horrible magic whatevers as she noticed the flaming red weapon sticking from near her chest.

"Oh..." she said, "oh dear."

Roaring flames ate her up as her mask fell off, but she had no real reaction to that becides frowning. Despite what her lightning burn-marks may have implied, the attack also did not do any visible damage to her skin. It did, however, seemingly made her weak enough to finally start falling to the ground. Oddly, the plant-pile finally fell too.

* * *

.GIFfany flew Melody over to where the Cultist fell, which happened to be right by the start of the copy pileup. Of course, helping was the fact that the copies had begun to move out, since the initial chill-blast was already over. Uniting the group together, the pileup also lightly showed Soos, Ford, and Darlene the general direction of the fallen Cultist, and Stan already lightly floated in that direction.

Zephieye was too weak to stand up, even after the fire burst died down. She lightly raised her head and glared at the team of Keepers. Seething, she gave these words:

"If you _really_ think you're smarter than me, LET'S SEE HOW _YOU_ HANDLE THE BLACK SUN! HUH? HUH?!"

.GIFfany took the sword out of her, looked at Melody, got a nod in response,

And used the Blade to cut off Zephieye's head.

Her body disappeared in black smoke.

The sky finally turned back to its brilliant, pale azure. The moon finally faded to near-invisibility as the Sun - still not black - shone brightly, already starting its long journey to melt the giant icicles that now surrounded the small Oregon town. The six Keepers stayed in a pseudo-circle formation, despite the disappearance of the witch that was in the center.

"What a cunt." Said the Antifire Squad Captain.

"Hey!" Said Darlene. "You shouldn't use that-"

"Trust me. I dated her. She's awful even when she _wasn't_ trying to end the world." Said Melody.

"And I know what she is like when she is. She beat me in battle before..." said .GIFfany, "but that was because I did not really _have_ you guys."

"Hey, wait." Said Soos. "You sure she's dead?"

"Yes." Said .GIFfany. "When I was her 'apprentice,' she kept talking about how I must support her up until her body disappears in black smoke as she dies. And when I tried fighting back, she kept saying how the smoke is an indicator of her death. She has a big ego. I would not assume otherwise."

Melody nodded.

"So... that's it, it's over?" Asked Stan. "We won?"

 **"FOOLS! DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU STOPPED THE RITUAL, JUST BECAUSE ITS HEAD WAS SLAIN?** ...Oh, she literally lost her head. I walked right in to that joke."

The six looked up for the possible source of that last voice - oh mother of goodness, the 'black hole' by that platform had become a giant black sphere-vortex thing looming above, and something all white-ish stuck a bony head out.

Emerging from it were three centaurs, not counting the skull-thing. The first was a deep gray, looking shriveled and malnourished. Even worse than him was the second green one, rotting and with the occasional fly buzzing around him. The third was red, covered with burly muscle, and looked angry enough to blow something up just by glaring at it. Then the skull emerged, revealing itself to be a skeletal centaur with a scythe in hand. 'Thankfully,' 'at least,' the vortex-sphere closed after all four of them came out and started to gallop down the air towards the group.

"Oh no..." said Ford, " _OHHHH NO..._ it's _**them.**_ "

"Who?" Asked Stan.

"Faminehorse. Pestilencehorse. Warhorse. Deathhorse. When Zephieye talked about the Skeltaurs, I didn't know she was referring to _them._ "

"But we don't believe in _that_ part! Right? Wait, what _do_ I even believe in anymore?"

"Not the normal Horsemen! Death is 'just' a Category 10 ghost, after all. I mean the Skeltaur Knights. The official border patrol of the virtual and the organic."

Once the four landed by the group of Keepers, not only were they each roughly twice .GIFfany's already impressive height, but the ground began to shook.

 **"WHAT THE HELL?!"** Asked the skeletal one. **"WHY IS THE EARTH RUMBLING?! ...THAT'S ACTUALLY NOT US. WHAT KIND OF PLANS ARE YOU COOKING TO ATTEMPT TO FOIL THE MAGNIFICENT SKELTAUR KNIGHTS?!"**

Something huge and green rose from the ground in the distance- oh. The temple! Despite at least part of it being positioned directly below Gravity Falls, its ascention seemed to be pretty far away from it.

 **"ANYWAY, FOR OUR INTRODUCTIONS. THIS IS FAMINEHORSE, DESTROYYYYYYER OF FOOD!"**

The skeletal one guestured his hands to the skinny, gray one. Who just shrugged.

"Oh, hey there. Uh, I'm sorry to say this, but we're kinda gonna have to... um... end your world? We were commanded by someone who followed us, to pick roughly this time for the end of the organic world and the start of the virtual one. I mean, like, the time she finished her ritual to even summon us."

The skeletal one continued. **"THAT IS PESTILENCEHORSE, DESTROYYYYYYER OF WELL-BEING!"**

That was directed to the green one, who seemed to be half-asleep.

"I'm sorry, what?" He asked, whipping his head around.

 **"WARHORSE, DESTROYYYYYYER OF PEACE!"**

Towards the red one, who stomped a hoof in front of the group. He said the following:

 **"I THINK IT IS JUST GROSS AND DISGUSTING THAT YOU CIS HET WHITE MEN KILL A PERFECTLY FINE LESBIAN QUEER WITH A PHYSICAL DISABILITY! YOU MISOGYNISTS AND YOUR OBSESSION WITH VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN MAKE ME SICK! IF A MAN WAS DOING WHAT ZEPHIEYE DID, IE NOTHING, YOU AWFUL HOMOPHOBIC MEN WOULDN'T HAVE TAKEN YOUR WIFE-BEATING ON HIM!"**

"Um..." said .GIFfany, "I dealt the finishing blow. I am a woman who likes both sexes."

"I sure as hell _helped,_ and loved that." Said Melody. "And yeah, I totally swing both ways."

 **"BULLCRAP! TRANSLATION: 'I AM AN INTERNALIZED MISOGYNIST WHO IS REALLY STRAIGHT, TRYING TO ERASE QUEER PEOPLE.' AND YOU, HUMAN, YOU ARE DESCENDED FROM MEN, MEANING THAT YOU HAVE INHERITED THEIR MALE PRIVILEGE!"**

"'Descended from men?'" Asked Melody, awestruck. "Okay, I can't argue anymore. I'm... I'm just _done._ "

Darlene just broke down laughing.

"Is that really how I sounded like to Zeskit?" She asked. "That's pathetic! No wonder why he hates anyone who talks about gender!"

 **"SAVING THE BEST FOR LAST,"** said the skeleton, guesturing at himself, **"I AM DEATHHORSE, DESTROYYYYYYER OF LIFE! IN FIFTY DAYS, WE WILL BRING UPON THE END OF THIS WORLD-"**

And then they found themselves having four hot pink collars wrapped around their necks, with pink chains leading up to a common source:

Oh _balls_ of course it's Pyronica.

"Hee hee, nope!" She said. "You all work for me now! And surprise everybody, I'm the _real_ final villain! Nice to see that I outlived Zeffawhatever!"

The horse-men looked at each-other for a few moments.

"Oh my Yogurt Soh-Tooth oh my Yogurt Soh-Tooth of my Yogurt Soh-Tooth!" Said Faminehorse, hopping in place. Which looked weird, considering the four feet. "It's the Anti-Hex! The Keeper of Void! In the flesh! ...Ooh, a _lot_ in the flesh! Hee hee!"

"Hey, don't be a sick objectifier!" Said Warhorse. "Stop viewing her as just a pretty sex object, and focus on her personality! **NOT** her looks! Like how she wants to destroy humanity for fun! That is a _**TOTALLY**_ beautiful adorable dorky personality that deserves praise! **PRAISE YOU, KEEPER OF VOID!"**

"But she's evil!" Melody cried. Finally, she took action to try to strike him - yet found herself blocked by a barrier that took the form of the air rippling around in a cube.

 **"SHUT UP AND KILL YOURSELF, YOU UGLY FATASS!"**

"Piiiink duuuude..." said Pestilencehorse, "you want us to, like, take over the world or some garbage? Haha."

"Yeah, sure." Said Pyronica. "Uh, how fast can you set up an apocalypse bomb linking this world to the Nightmare Realm?"

"The Nightmare Realm? Woah man, that's totally within... yeah, we got that crazy crap, bro! Us four homies are all packed and hyped up for some mega destruction! Also, can you _imagine_ the views we'd get on Intertube? Heck, maybe the post-apocalyptic setting could be good for our show on Intertube Red! It's gonna be so radtropolis! I bet we can get, like, 420,000,000,000,000 views. Haha, get it? 420 trillion? It's a joke on 420, man."

"Isn't Intertube Red a porn website?" Melody asked the worst possible question _anyone_ could have asked in that situation, clasping a hand over her mouth and blushing.

 **"THREE HOURS."** Deathhorse provided a straight answer to Pyronica's question.

Pyronica brought herself up, and her 'leeshed dogs' (horse-men in this case) floated up with her.

"Well, cool! See you in three hours, losers!"

Then she did that same warp-move again, bringing all four of the Skeltaurs with her.

"ANOTHER WEIRDMAGEDDON IN JUST THREE HOURS, _WITHOUT_ A RIFT?" Asked Ford. "WAIT... IS THAT EVEN, POSSIBLE?"

Soos fell to his knees, gripping his hair with his one well arm. "What are we even gonna do?"

The Green Temple had finally finished emerging, and it shot a beam at the floating complex of ships. That somehow got all the black, glowing 'vines' of sorts to disappear. Following that, a yellow and a red beam were both fired at it, and the green temple was joined by its yellow and red counterparts. Those actions also gave the Keepers the first view of the temples in their entirety, from the outside. They were all... kinda-shaped like the letter 'L,' just enourmous, and with a tiny 'room' section at the very bottom.

The Sage-Guides all floated out, smiling.

"Okay, we sensed that the Lightning Cultist was gone, so we finally activated the temples and brought them here with their super-speed!" Cheered Red as she clapped her hands. "Green even moved his around the ground so that it would not damage this town when it came up! But... it looks like this town was already damaged. Well, you can fix that. We can all fix it! In fact, now you can face against just about _anything!_ "

"What about the Skeltaur Knights?" Asked Ford, grinning sheepishly.

The Guides all looked at one-another, instantly frowning.

"Oh... that's a hard one..." Red answered. "Well, generally, they might need the force of all six Keeper Blades to destroy. And one cannot really face them in any way without all six Blades unless you fight them inside a temple. So, either way, get to the last three temples, and you will be safer."

"Got it." Ford said, pounding his palm with his fist. "And I suggest that the best way of doing this is splitting up and taking all three of the temples at the same time. Darlene, Melody, and I must take the orange, purple, and blue temples respectively. But I think each of us should have a partner that has a Keeper Blade, in case Pyronica throws anything at us..."

"Ooh! Ford, I call dibs on being your partner!" Stan waved his Blade-holding hand around.

"If Red's map is right," said Melody, "my temple's in my home town and it's apparently still infested with Cultists. Sorry Soos, but... I think I have the tougher mission here, I'm gonna need someone with powers _on top of_ her Keeper Blade skills. So... .GIFfany, will you be with me?"

The AI ran up to her and hugged her.

"So that leaves me with Darlene." Said Soos. "Cool! You know, I really got to know .GIFfany over this adventure, and I knew Melody and the Stans a lot... we haven't really interacted that much. Even over the four months. In fact, you're the last Keeper I spoke to, even counting Pyronica! We gotta talk more, Darlene!"

He patted her on the back, although her hard-ness caused his hand to twitch a bit in pain.

"Oh, hahah..." Darlene kind of shrunk back. "Thanks."

"...Does everyone agree on our setup?" Ford asked.

The other five Keepers nodded.

"Really? Because I'm open to suggestions. I'm trying not to overtake everything."

Everyone nodded again.

"...Okay then. Now, we are on a _very_ strict time limit. And this means that, as much as some of you - okay, just Melody - would not want to hear this, we have no time to put clothes on."

Melody gave a _very_ pained nod, but that stopped when .GIFfany pretty much dragged her and Soos towards the side. On the other side of a particularly large icicle sticking from the ground.

"This might seem bad now," said the AI, "but when this is over, I promise I am going to fuck your brains out."

* * *

Chapter 9's 'bonus.'

 _Two days after landing on Fanservice Island. (Shortly after the end of Chapter 6.)_

"Well, that was easy!" Ford proudly announced as he held up a finished pair of nice, comfortable, fuel-efficient blue jeans. "Designing clothes on this island! I have no idea why even the .GIFfany Army struggled with this..."

He casually flipped them around in front of his only audience - a mildly amused Darlene, and a completely awestruck Melody. Both of which sat on stumps that used to have been full trees until the .GIFfanys went by, and the latter still brought an arm over her chest.

"Now, to just try them on..."

And then he noticed that tiny gray bug that was a Cloth Moth land on a pant leg.

Seeing that, Ford jumped roughly a kilometer back, took a ray gun from his inventory, and fried the entirety of the pants, also just barely killing the Cloth Moth. Darlene chuckled at the moment, but Melody fumed.

"Why did you do that?!" She asked. "I've been waiting for new clothes ever since .GIFfany shred mine!"

"I'll explain later! For now, this much reach the entire island:"

* * *

"NOBODY MAKE OR TRY TO WEAR ANYTHING FOR REAL CLOTHES!" Ford shouted, running through the streets of the city with nothing but his glasses. "THE CLOTH MOTHS WILL EAT THEM! AND THEY'LL TURN RED AND EAT _US!_ "

He ran past Stan trying to paint something on Soos. A series of random patterns in black, over a golden coating over him. That sight got Ford to stop running.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Oh, Soos and I were thinking about redesigning his look a little for his grand return to the Mystery Shack. He'll make up some story that's sorta like a family-friendly version of this. It involves us getting a buncha symbols on us. He's thinking of turning it in to a comic book and a film script, you should probably read it. It's really good!"

Soos nodded. "Gotta keep the kids in mind! You know, because children _do_ visit the Mystery Shack, and if I ever told them what _really_ goes on over here... I'd get arrested. Say, does this paint count as clothes?"

"Paint does not."

The Earth Squad Captain popped her head out of the ground.

"What about mud coverings?"

"No, unless it's... thick plating. Just having mud smeared over you does not count. Even if used with the intent to 'kind of cover.' Trust me, I ran experiments on these things."

"AHA!" Shouted the Weapons Squad Captain, who flipped out of one of the higher floors of a building. "I _knew_ that shit doesn't count for 'real clothes!' Same with body paint! If you want to run around effectively naked, that's fine, but do not act like recoloring your nipples blue is the same thing as something that _actually_ conceals them. That double standard pisses me off."

"...Guys," said Ford, ignoring 9 as everyone else did, ".GIFfanys, I think most of you will be safe, since you already do not 'wear' clothing with the intention to _be_ clothes, just to tease. You are okay with going around naked, and just 'decorate.' The Cloth Moths do not count 'decorations' over naked bodies. They do count anything remotely similar to full cloth, and anything that 100% hides the body's 'intimate' locations."

Melody ran over to the crowd, nearly slipping as she reached the mini-town square.

"Can I _at least_ cover my boobs with my hair?"

"Mmmmmm..." he looked up to the sky, as though he was trying to remember him actually trying that. He was. "No, they hate that. ...A lot, for some reason. When I tried it with _my_ nipples, it instantly sent a small cloud in to their red rage mode, even though they shouldn't have the strength to eat full people yet."

"And no offense Melody," 9 continued even though nobody asked, "I hate that too. I think it just looks..." she shrugged, "I dunno."

"So wait," said Darlene, also joining most of the other Keepers, "are you saying that there's these bugs here that don't want any of us to get dressed?"

"I'm afraid so. We may be forced to remain naked for the entire time we are on here. Now, .GIFfanys, can you send the message to every single other one of you? Actually, can I? I feel like what counts as 'clothing' to them and what does not should be very specifically detailed. I remember writing a list back in the first Journal. It took up over half of the book."

Prime already entered the setting, giggling as she spun around with a half-full beer bottle in her hand. She also hummed a song as she kept her eyes closed.

"See, I kinda- we kinda had some thoughts about this island being... that we're naked." She said. "Hee hee, the Lightning Cultist g-*hic*-gave me some d-d-detttttttttails about it... that's why we did not care too much about clothing."

"Judging on my previous encounter with them in Gravity Falls," explained the author, "they probably went active when the last scraps of my clothes went in to the Depths and somehow escaped Pyronica's Hellflame burns, awakening them. Any time before that, and coming on with clothes would have been safe."

"That explains how I was able to wear my usual stuff without getting bugged to death." Said Darlene. "I always avoided the Depths. Something about that place just... felt _off._ "

"Whelp." Stan shrugged. "I guess now it's total naked time or something! Four months with no clothes! WHOO! Who's with me?"

That got a number of cheers from the Artificial Army.

"Hell yeah!" Said the drunk Prime. "Fuck clothes, anyway!"

...

As I am currently deceased, your "cryptogram" for this chapter will be completely uncoded. Think of it as a "reward." This will also be my last such cryptogram. Anyway:  
They wept after the loss of the of the consumer of organs that dwells in the mountain caves, and they wept after the loss of the sorceress who controls electronics at her finger tips.  
Next are the four Knights of Mystery.  
God help us all.  
\- Zephieye Smith, AKA the Lightning Cultist, AKA the Great Zephieye.

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

Despite what the end of the chapter (not counting the bonus) might imply, **the following chapters are** _ **not**_ **to be read in any order as Chapters 2-4 were.** Yes, each of them roughly focuses on one of the three remaining temples, but they're still very much told in a linear manner, and the point of view will rotate around them. Trust me, just by skipping from 10 to 11 will throw a ton of spoilers on you.

You might have guessed that me "rushing" this story to get it out by the anniversary of "Soos and the Real Girl" influenced how short the bonus was, for anyone who cares about bonuses. Well, that and I probably wouldn't be sure how to enlongate something as basic as the first time the Hexagram Emergency-six 'encountered' the Cloth Moths.

I know I promised last chapter that I would fix up some mistakes with _run:gifocalypse_ , but I also really wanted this chapter to be out on this day, the anniversary of "Soos and the Real Girl" (I would have also considered celebrating the anniversary of "Fight Fighters" but they're, like, barely a week apart from each-other.) Edits may come tomorrow if I don't feel like a lazy ass.

Anyway, there was so much I wanted to throw in to this chapter, one of which being that I really wanted to play out the part about Melody hiding (this chapter was, in fact, originally named "Hiding" after that until the last second when I finally thought of a better title; it was originally going to be named "Not Very Funny Horsies" in reference to the debut of the Skeltaurs and this "Funny Horsie" series of videos by the surreal video maker Chriddof, but I thought that would be kind of giving away the twist at the end) a lot more and in a more horrific way. I kind of like scenarios with nude women in them, what I'm not a _huge_ fan of/have mixed feelings about is when they're being subjected to, quite honestly, pretty horrible things and yet that's blatantly being played for sex appeal. A tiny, side-purpose of this story was to at some point kinda shit all over the whole "Embarassed Naked Female" sub-genre and actually kind of twist it in to something closer to a horror story, with the character "humiliating" the naked person being clearly depicted as a piece of shit. Part of this is just me having a preference for "waifus" that go around naked because they like doing it and don't give a damn, and aren't just fragile and crying and angsting all the time about their contrived nudity stuff. This is not anything out of "anger" or being "offended," I'm just kind of against cliches and I believe that _the narrative_ should not take it likely when a character frankly does something creepy and invasive (I mean, I won't throw a fit if someone gets away with something but it's _presented_ as a bad action, unlike... some people on the web).

Sorry to kinda fillibuster. Anyway:

 **Character Notes:** Actually, all of the "new" characters in this chapter, if memory serves (and I just looked over all of it over the course of three days, so I think I have a relatively good grasp on memory), are characters I made, just changed. The Cultists are based on a certain group of people in _run:gifocalypse_. (Okay, fine, the last people who played the respective .GIFfany copy. I'd assume at this point you'd have checked out RG out of sheer confusion anyway, and this isn't that much of a spoiler.) Which reminds me that I didn't ever really describe what they actually looked like. There's twelve instead of thirteen because 9/Dove's last player hates technology so I'd imagine he wouldn't join the Cult. The Skeltaurs are based on this reoccuring _SBIG_ character named Darkhorse, at least design wise. Deathhorse [sic], the main one of them, is closest in line with Darkhorse's original. I doubt I could say anything about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse that Google can't.

Well, I also have a little short something else planned for this day. There's a high chance you'll see it. But if not, I'll explain what it was.


	11. Famine and Pestilence

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 10: Famine and Pestilence**

 **Beginning AN:**

We're almost there! With the Lightning Cultist dead, this is pretty much the start of the 'final arc' so to speak.

I also wonder if anyone would look at the chapter names from the drop-down menu, see the bleak titles of this and Chapter 11 (well, when it's out, anyway), and start picturing some weird ideas about this story going dark. And then be confused of the titles of Chapters 12 and 13. Well, I will say right now that this fic probably won't get _that_ dark. In fact, maybe the fight against the Lightning Cultist was as "morbid" (I do not want to use "dark" yet again) of a tone as it'll go.

Oh, and I _finally_ fixed those errors in _run:gifocalypse_ caused by putting a hyphen before .GIFfany's name, which would erase the whole thing and just leave a nonsense space. Went through each and every chapter. I might make a list of those changes, although it would be easier for RG because I actually put that list in a file just for craps and giggles, while I did not save the EFFI changes there. Also, for all of you Grammar Nazis who don't like how I was using "foreward" when it should be "forward," don't worry: I fixed all instances here and in _run:gifocalypse_. And the process to fix that was its own punishment, that was seriously a pain in the ass, so there's no need to be angry because we're even. Not in any of my other stories yet, though (this is one of the exception as it's ongoing and thus people will 'see it first,' RG's the other exception because I love it).

I also went back to Chapter 8's Bonus and removed a stupid thing. Darlene probably shouldn't be removing the graves of the other people she ate as that would be disrespecting the dead. She only tried to remove Stan's now. (Actually, that was what I was _going_ to do, but I don't think anywhere in the bonus actually implied her removing all the tombs. But I cleared it up just to be sure, that she was just going to remove Stan's. And I explained how Melody and .GIFfany "rode" in to the scene.) Speaking of Chapter 8's Bonus, did you know that that description of Ford letting his foot down is kind of an inside-reference to this scrapped fic idea _Homer Takes a Step_? Just some fun little trivia for those with enough patience to get through these notes. Although I suppose rewarding you for reading through 'some of me' with 'more of me' isn't that good of an idea...

* * *

The hex-ship, once a powerful center of ritual magic by the late Zephieye Smith, but now a proud ride used by the Keepers of the Hexagram Emergency. Out in the middle of the Atlantic, the massive ride flew over at near-invisible speeds over to a particular oil rig. It was there that the Stan Brothers both hopped out, Stan waving bye, Ford taking some time to as well. Once the six-ship combo practically disappeared, Ford whipped out some devices, following after a blue dot.

"Here." Said the Green Sage-Guide, who popped out of Stan's rear. "I know where to go to reach the Blue Temple. You'll have to hold your breaths, though. It's under water."

The entrance itself was easy to pin down. Just swim under what looked to just be some blue burried in rock, and then swim up to the 'air.' Quote marks because the temple had done a poor job completely keeping water out over the years, with slow trickles leaking in.

* * *

Deep within the Sahara, the ship bolted its way down to a tiny piece of orange stone that struck from the dunes. Soos and Darlene bolted towards the stone, following the excited Yellow Sage-Guide as she (and her breasts) bounced over through, happy to direct them to which path led to the warp room and chamber the quickest.

* * *

Before Melody knew it, the six-way ship combination had already landed by an isolated little forest wilderness by Portland. She didn't even finish taking a deep breath as she grasped the surroundings.

"So..." she said, "this is it."

.GIFfany pat a hand on her shoulder.

"Why are you nervous?"

"I- I don't even know. I mean, Zephieye is dead and everything, but... that humming noise from the temple, and..."

"It will be okay. I will help you if it is not. And even if I cannot, the Army will provide backup. It is why we came here last, after all, so that we have way more force to deal with the hardest temple. Now, let's do this!"

Aaaaaand as soon as they stepped off, the hex-ship took up and off without them.

"Hey, wait, what?" Melody asked. ".GIFfany, is this some prank? I know this wasn't what we planned!"

The Ectoenergy Squad Captain ran her tanish legs towards the edge of the blue portion of the ship, reaching her head over. She tried to pass an arm over the side, but found it blocked by a glowing yellow barrier.

"This isn't a joke!" Said the sun-haired captain. "Something's taking over the ship!"

Those were her last words before the ship flew off, away from the temple entrance.

.GIFfany and Melody just stood there, awestruck.

"Well..." said the former. "Uh... Red? Where is the temple?"

"...I can show you the way." Replied the Sage-Guide.

* * *

"Boy, is it dry and sandy in here." Soos said, taking in how the shade of the Orange Temple just _barely_ blocked out the desert's wrath. Then again, compared to the Red Temple in Fanservice Island's volcanic portion, it was pretty cool. But unlike the volcanic portion, there was no Fire Squad and Antifire Squad to set up a system of temperature-regulators to make it _feel_ like just a normal area that happened to have harmless-feeling lava. And magma, because it went underground.

"Actually, Orange loves a setting like this." The Yellow Sage-Guide elaborated. "It reminds him of the place he first spawned from. I believe he may have been able to direct his frozen sphere, with as little remaining power as he had, to the desert for a burial he would enjoy."

"...Really?" Darlene asked. "I should ask a lot more about him. He's going to be my guide- wait a minute, you said 'him' and 'he,' right?"

"Red and I are the only women in our group." Yellow seemed to sweat. Or, whatever her version of that is. "Unless you count the Anti-Sage, but she's... really not part of our group."

Then she mumbled something.

"What was that?" Asked Darlene.

"...I said I hate her. _Hate_ hate."

"I'm sure she's not that bad!" Said Soos. "Maybe she's just kinda misunderstood and troubled. Like .GIFfany and Dar- uh, you there. But... like, I know the Troll and the Lightning Cultist were really bad. I can't say anything about those two."

Soos found her left arm suddenly on his shoulder. And, seemingly with just the power of her index finger tip, he was pulled to face her directly. The Light Guide's eyes had just appeared as solid white, contrasted by what looked from Soos's point of view to be a view of increasing darkness in a circle around. For Darlene, the light levels appeared to be just as they were before the grab.

"Listen to me very carefully. Like the Cultist, the Anti Sage is _beyond_ repair. Do **not** try to 'fix'' her. Do **not** try to redeem her. Do **not** even try to _talk_ to her. You follow the mission, and eliminate anything relating to the Void and the Age it will inevidably bring."

"Uh... okay?"

"Do **not.** "

She continued walking down the sunset-colored halls, turning to the far right at the first intersection - a five-way one - without saying another word.

* * *

"Okay, what the fuck is going on?" The Plant Squad Captain asked the other squad captains, all of whom (yes, even the ones that are not based on the main professors from _run:gifocalypse_ , except Plant herself as she broke to ask the question) were typing furiously on unresponsive computers.

"Something's hijacked almost all of our systems!" Replied the Weapons Squad Captain, who - in sharp contrast to her allies - her only change in tone was that she was slightly breathing a little more heavy.

"Somethin' with a _lot_ of ghostly energy." Said the Ectoenergy Squad Captain. "We're talking a Category 10... maybe a Category 11, but Ford didn't have any first-hand accounts of those. Dipper did, but we haven't spoken to him since... actually, even if you count .GIFfany Prime as 'us,' which we don't because incest, I don't think she ever actually said a word directly aimed at him."

"Crowds with him in it, yes. Holding a conversation with Dipper, no." Weapons corrected. "Anyway, the Generator is the one exception and the reason for the exact term 'almost,' the partial entity in this conglomeration of technology, magic, occult arts, and magic utility had been ; but the new copies have been acting... weird since our ship was hijacked."

"Define 'weird.'" Said Plant.

"Odd look in their eyes. Kind of talked funny. Almost sounded like if someone tried to mind-control them, but directed them to be subtle about it, and gave them horrible commands that could easily be misunderstood. I was also picking up signs of psychic interference on them, too, so something is getting in to their heads."

"Again," added Ectoenergy, "something _**powerful.**_ Fuggin' _UNSTOPPABLE._ "

"'Unstoppable' is the _ONLY_ word worthy of my strength!" Said a pretty unwanted voice. That got all the .GIFfanys to look up, the 'general direction' of the voice's source. Maybe. Even the Sound Squad Captain had some trouble discerning.

"Oh no!" Shouted 9. "That voice! That _ego!_ That can only be-"

"Need I remind you that this is a world with ghosts in it? Ghosts that can haunt locations that they are not done with? And I am technically not done with this place yet?"

There was Zephieye, in the form of a pale cyan spectral entity-variation of herself. Aside from that, the most noteworthy change of her appearance was that all four of her limbs occasionally gave out bursts of that sort of ghost-fire seen with Mr. Archibald Corduroy (people who don't have _Journal 3_ are probably taking a good guess at who the fuck I'm talking about), until they eventually formed in to four flaming, spectral swords. She was still clad in her robes, although her mask was gone. Her head also, at times, detatched from the rest of her body. Because this is an M-rated fan fiction, the separated segment also dripped with ghost-blood a little I dunno. I'm not sure how or why ghosts would have blood, but that would make this Peggy Hill-cum-Lunatic Cultist OC look edgier and more badass.

" _ **Zephieye!**_ " The entirety of the Artificial Army present in the main room cried out. Except the Antifire Captain, but she still shivered a little at the ghost's appearance.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Asked the Fire Squad Captain. "Our group just killed you last chapter! At least space yourself out a bit." Yes, Burnda can break the fourth wall. Generally, in stories less serious than _run:gifocalypse_. Whether or not she can break the fourth wall in RG itself is gonna be a mystery for now.

"...I thought I just explained it. I am now haunting this area. A ghost, by herself, can be a powerful threat. Let alone a ghost _with expert genius knowledge of the supernatural before dying._ "

The Ectoenergy Squad Captain shrugged. "Hey, do you even _REALIZE_ that you are dealing with the _ASTONISHING_ .GIFfany Number 507915? The Ectoenergy Squad _CAPTAIN?_ You are NOT the only one who knows about ghosts! I can exorcise you in seconds FLAT!"

"And she can make ghosts feel pain." Weapons jerked a thumb towards her blonde sis- uh, ...clone? No. Derivative? "So that we may also help partake in the thorough ass-whooping."

 _All_ of the .GIFfanys got in to a fighting stance, and each of their hands began to give off several sparks of electricity. Many of which - and that feature was universal among the captains - were color-coded, usually according to their hair, while some of the relative noobs had .GIFfany's canon light blue electricity.

Time to get more elaborate: many of them made shapes from electric energy, then turned them in to metal, then turned them in to something else. I'll go over the more abstract ones to deal with curiosity and to avoid coming off as redundant and/or just listing the obvious ones. For an obvious one, Plant made energy, then metal in the shape of a flower with a long vine-like stem, then formed an actual thorn-covered rose from that. The Sound Squad Captain's metal was of a more abstract, circular shape that was quickly turned in to colorful waves that rippled through the air, each color representing its own unique note for those that got close enough. The Paint Squad Captain just made a 'clump' shape, which turned in to color-shifting paint that floated through the air as she soon planted herself on the ceiling...

The objects that _were_ created just harmlessly fell down in a less active state, and non-solid ones kind of either dispersed through the air if a gas or fell on the ground if liquid. The Paint Captain fell to the ground on her head. Any future attempts to get their powers back resulted in just making lower bunches of electricity, which died down from there, eventually just becoming tiny color-coded sparks. And soon, even the color-coding was gone, as each proud squad captain was only able to make tiny bright blue dots, before those failed.

They looked down, and the last thing to give out as their tiny censorship grids, as the copies covered themselves with their hands just in time.

"Our powers!" Cried Weapons/9. "And the closest thing we really considered our clothes! What did you do to them?!"

Zephieye tapped her head. "Basic math. Knowledge of the supernatural plus enhanced ghostly powers plus knowing the inner workings equals... no powers for you! However, there _is_ one way to get them back..."

That was when a number of copies with the same, bright ghostly glow in their eyes burst through the doors, all lined up behind the Cultist.

"Join my army. I already took over your Generator, and I am already adding those to me as we speak. Once all of you are on my side and are ready to help bring me back to life, _then_ you can leave this ship. Of course, since you would be under my control, you would not want to."

* * *

"We should be near the area..." Yellow _finally_ said _something_ again. "I'm excited to see Orange again..."

"Say, what was with that weird bad feeling we kept getting from the Red Temple?" Soos asked. "It lasted right up until we freed Red. These temples are supposed to be good things. Why would all of us - especially, like, our supernatural women - feel so much dread the closer we got? And why was Pyronica immune to it?"

"...I think it was the Cultist trying to keep us out of it? As an extra precaution..." Darlene tried to answer, "and the spell was set to go away after freeing Red. Because with her out, there was no reason to keep us out of-"

"Here." Said the Guide with the team, guesturing to the room. A similar copy-paste of the other rooms that the three previous Guides were sealed in, with the most noteworthy difference being that the carving depicted Darlene's form rather than .GIFfany's, Soos's, or Stan's.

As Darlene walked her way over to the orange sphere, taking note of the humanoid inside appearing as a twenty-something man with wild, spikey hair in the same curled up position, Soos placed his hand over his stomach and coughed.

"Suddenly," he said, "I'm feeling pretty hungry. Is anyone else feeling hungry? I mean, it's _really_ sudden. Before we left the island, I had a nice meal, and-"

"Oh man, that's probably because of us. Er, me, Pestilencehorse's ability doesn't specifically cause hunger. Sorry, it's just that I like eating a lot. And stealing food. I mean, that's why I am called the Destroyer of Food, after all."

Both the Keepers and the Guide turned around, seeing Faminehorse and Pestilencehorse standing right behind them. The latter waved, the former was by a minifridge that was suddenly there for some reason. Despite Faminehorse being the speaker of that above line, he was absolutely digging through the contents of the fridge, scanning vehemently. Obviously, not even looking at the group.

"...So, are you trying to kill us or not?" Soos asked. "Because everything about your other two buddies says 'yes,' but you guys are acting really chill."

"Oh, I'll maybe end up killing you alright." Said Faminehorse, finally whipping out a hamburger. He took a bite, then spat out something green. "Urgh, I don't really like pickles. Anyway, anyway- look. Soul Keeper. Let's make a deal. You don't free that guy, and we'll have an easier time getting ready to wipe out all organic life and make way for the virtual life on this world, as part of Zephieye's- no. Wait. Pyronica wanted the Earth to be killed for _her kind_ to move on.

"...H-hang on! Keepers, uh... why don't we just compromise? We _don't_ need to wipe out most organic life to make the planet suitable for the Nightmare Realm!"

"Yeah, but then _they'll_ just wipe out us instead." Soos explained.

"Why do you think they'll do that? Isn't that, like, racist against eldritch demon horrors?"

"Because they tried it before! I had an 'apocalypse' right on my home when this Bill Cipher dude did it! You might know him. He was, like, a triangle. But a scary one, with flaming hands and a thing for people screaming in terror."

"You could just be stereotyping based on a few bad ones that made it through. Uh, anyway, if you're not going to just sit there and do nothing, then we'll fight back."

Soos laughed as he looked at his sword. Meanwhile, Darlene had already touched against the orange sphere, causing it to crack. Pestilencehorse barely even seemed to notice; Faminehorse gasped.

"Look dudes, I have this cool sword that even cut up these big things out in the ocean." Soos said, keeping his eyes on the Light Keeper's Blade for emphasis. "You probably shouldn't try to challenge us. It could be pretty-"

And then came the flash of light, which got even the two Skeltaurs to shield their eyes after the room was filled with white.

Before the glow even finished dying down, the orange figure brought his feet down, stuck a finger up to the air, and opened out his body, with only a small-yet-long orange ghost-like thing covering his crotch. Said censorship method looked like... a... pig-mole hybrid thing? With _sunglasses?_

"ALRIGHT!" He cheered. "FINALLY! THE ORANGE SAGE-GUIDE IS FREE, READY TO ROLL, AND READY TO HELP SOME KEEPERS KICK SOME ASS! YOU'RE NOW MORE THAN HALF-WAY THERE, AND I'M HAPPY TO BE HERE TO-"

Then the Yellow Guide gave him a tackle-hug, practically leaping on him. His face was absolutely stuffed in her chest, and unlike Green, he did not seem to mind too much. After a few initial snuggle-moves, Yellow breathed air in through her teeth.

"Orange..." she said, "I know this is a bad time, but... there's two of the Skeltaur Knights right here, the Knights of Mystery. Do you think you can-?"

"OH HELL YES, I'D LOVE TO HELP YOU FINALLY SLAUGHTER THOSE JERKS! Now," he broke from the hug, searching around the people in the room, "which one of you set me free? I want to know who will be able to hold my Blade, and who will just get consumed by raw spiritual energy. FIGHTING spiritual energy!"

Then a few things clicked. With Soos already having a Blade in his hands, Orange said, "well, not you. Unless you're a two-fer Keeper or something. But I don't think we have those. Hrm..." Then he looked at the Skeltaurs. It should also be noted that Faminehorse appeared to be backing away, with it being Pestilencehorse's turn to get lost in the minifridge they brought with them. "And _OBVIOUSLY_ not you. ...I hope, unless we _REALLY_ screwed up when it came to the ritual. No, wait, I remember now. Red told me telepathically. Uh... it's..."

For some reason, it took him a bit to single out the last other occupant in the room that was not another Guide. Even then, he kind of looked over at Yellow, said "Wait, are _you_ somehow my- nevermind..." and then **finally** met eyes with Darlene.

Who sheepishly waved back.

"YOU THERE! GREAT! NOW I REMEMBER! MY GUIDE'S PART SPIDER! AWESOME! NOW, DIANE,"

"Darlene." She corrected.

"RIGHT, DARLENE. I WANT YOU TO HAVE THIS:"

Sparking particles showed up with a tealish glow, often giving off tiny bolts of lightning. As with the formation of the other Blades, as time passed, more and more formed; to the point where the some of the later objects were pepple-sized clumps of solid... ecto-stuff, which slowly turned more and more yellow in color, then orange. When they were brought together, the result was a giant, wavy sword shape that seemed to be solid yet moved as though it was liquid barely kept in the shape of a sword. In addition, the sword-'form' was constantly giving off electricity. The shell burst, revealing a shiny orange sword that had matching wisps flying around. Seeing no immediate move on the end of the Skeltaurs, Darlene grabbed it.

 **YOU GOT THE SOUL KEEPER'S BLADE!**

 **A HOT BLOODED, BADASS weapon that was hidden within the cracks of Earth. Use the power of raw ecto-energy against the enemy with a single swing! Powered by magic and... and, uh... something... oh yeah! Propane! (And RAW FIGHTING SPIRIT! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK THIS IS?!)**

"Well." Said Darlene. "That was fast."

"Hey, Pestilencehorse!" Faminehorse shouted. "Uh... I don't know about you, but I'm getting out of here. Sorry."

The thin man-horse ran off, with a deep, dark spinning vortex appearing on the wall he seemed to otherwise be gunning right after. Within the middle was a purple palette-swap of the temple's stone. The portal closed after he seemlessly sunk in through it, leaving Pestilencehorse to slowly move his head around at the setting.

"Huh? Oh, wow man. I'm psyching out. I could swear I was hearing Faminehorse about a sec ago! ...Hey man, where did this, like, fridge come from? Is it real? What is real? How can this be real if our eyes aren't?"

"...We should attack him, right?" Darlene asked to the Guides.

Yellow nodded vehemently, Orange just said "I was wondering why you didn't already!"

And thus, the two present Keepers utterly charged at the one remaining Knight. Soos, body turning towards a shining blaze of rainbow light. Darlene, with glowing ecto-'flames' that did not burn coating her. Both of them stabbed the green Skeltaur, his attack causing a burst of light to jump forth, hers making a small tornado of the same energy fly out...

Pestilencehorse was still in one piece, standing there.

"Haha, wow that looked cool. I really _am_ high. Can you, like, do it again? I need more of this weed... and more of you two?"

Both Darlene and Soos were absolutely dumbfounded.

"What?!" Asked the former. "K-Keepers! I mean Guides, we're the Keepers... Guides! Do you know anything about this?!"

"No!" Yellow replied, frantically looking around the room as though the temple itself could talk and give her answers. "Your Blades _should_ be able to cut right through! I mean, the Skeltaur Knights are bad, but... well, the only thing that could protect them is-"

"Oh yeah, that hot pink chick with the ass ate these wicked berries, flashed black stuff, and coated us."

Yellow slammed a fist against the wall nearest to her, causing Orange to shudder.

"Uh, Yells?" He asked. "You okay?"

"It's the Anti-Sage! Well, her Keeper- I mean, the Anti-Hex!" That terminology is a pretty good reason on why skipping any chapter in a story written by me is a bad idea. It starts out closer to canon, but slowly starts introducing its own rules and shit. "It makes sense! She has powers that can resist and neutralize ours! Hell, that's the main reason why she was so good at sealing all of us! It's the _only_ reason!"

"Well, I wouldn't say _only,_ but..."

Taking a deep breath, the Yellow guide patted her orange-r counterpart on the shoulder. But said nothing further.

* * *

.GIFfany and Melody just kept staring at something. Don't ask me what _just_ yet; if this were visual, this would be when we see the camera _facing_ them, the object in question just behind the point of view.

"You're sure you can't go through that?" Melody asked.

"I am sure."

"I know. I'm sure too. I knew Zephieye's magic. She's really saving the advanced stuff for our home town."

Okay, now's the time: 'that' was a transparent black-ish wall with several, darker giant 'X's that slowly scrolled down the texture until 'wrapping around' so to speak.

"Thankfully, the Skeltaurs shouldn't be able to either," Melody explained further, "so they can't just camp out behind that and hide until the three hours pass."

"Yeah, but I _can_ camp out around _here!_ "

It was Faminehorse who had said that, having just trotted over to the position of the two women.

"Oh. Hi there. I'm supposed to kill you or something, okay? I mean, it sounds fun. So, why not?"

.GIFfany immediately stepped forth in front of Melody, Blade out and ready.

"If you want to go through her, you must go through me first! ...Melody, was that a cliche thing to say?"

"I don't know. Soos kept track of that stuff more than I did."

"I _think_ that's how the line goes," Faminehorse interrupted, "but I'm not that sure. Well, it doesn't matter, because we're just going to end the world anyway."

.GIFfany just cut any future talk and charged towards the horse-man, already ablaze from her Keeper Blade.

You could probably already guess that that attack had the exact same result as Soos and Darlene's attempt to double-team Pestilencehorse. The Blade _kinda_ did a bit of damage, but absolutely nothing drastic.

"Yeah... I'm afraid those things won't work on us." Said the emaciated centaur. "Sorry. You'll have to try something else. You know, I think Zephieye might have some kind of counter-spells against us, if that helps."

That immediately gave Melody an idea. She slapped her forehead, said "Oh, duh!" and began scratching at her arm.

"Say, could you wait a bit before I start?" She asked. "I think I forgot something."

"No!" One of the few times the horse-man came close to really raising his voice. "I know you're trying to draw blood to cast a spell against us!"

"Yes I am! But you're already too late! **Elquiip deytieena hgaszdrit!** "

She dashed forth as a transparent outline of a sword formed around her hand in glowing violet. Faminehorse leaped back, thrust an arm forward, and a number of yellowed, dead-looking, spiked 'vines' shot out.

Melody wasn't even slowed down. She just slashed at them, ignored the rumbling of her stomach, and even when two of the vines seemed to have finally pushed her, she fired the sword completely off of her hand, causing it to fly until it stabbed Faminehorse right through the head.

With that, he suddenly... did a 180 in tone.

 **"I WISH UPON YOU... STARVATION!"** He cried.

And then he turned in to a yellow explosion, wiping him out. One down, three to go-

 _You feel your muscles become weak, unable to move a thing._

None of the Keepers knew what that message was. It came to their heads, voiceless yet sounding loud at the same time. To some extent, that was true - each of them _did_ feel a sudden droop in energy in their muscles, but it soon faded.

* * *

"So, if neither of you can kill me even with your Keeper Blades..." said Pestilencehorse, "why don't we all just, like, get high together? It'll really help you wait out the... rest of the time? You guys have left? On this world? Before we just hand it over to the Nightmare Realm?"

Soos frowned. "Do we _have_ to kill this guy? He seems kinda friendly."

"Friendly, but evil!" Darlene said in return, giving her sacred weapon the occasional look. "They're working together, _with Pyronica,_ to end the world!"

Pestilencehorse lept in the air until he was _just_ at the height before he could hit his head on the Orange Temple's ceiling, but he floated in place up there. _Then_ he started spinning in place, before landing.

"Let's, like, get down and do this! Now, go after them, germs and stuff!"

Green gas emitted from his... skin? Darlene immediately gagged.

"What is that?" She asked. "Raw bacteria?"

"No, it's raw bac... ba... no wait, ya' totally nailed! Like, _woa-hoah!_ But yeah. I'm gonna... you see, infect you dudes... it's gonna rock."

Soos was simply taking a few steps back. Darlene, on the other hand, already shifted in to full spider mode, all eight of her legs scurrying backwards, and naturally managing to go far behind Soos.

"Okay, _normally_ I'm a fan of all that gross... uh, disease - I'm a spider, I kind of _have_ to be - but... you're like, the _embodiment,_ which is just way too much for me."

"Yeah, you're right. This is also kind of a standard-grade poison, which will kill you. Eventually? Because, you know, pesticides beat insects."

"Did you just call me... a part- _spider..._ an **INSECT?** " Darlene halted in her tracks. " **HOW** old are you?"

"Uh... five million." Pestilencehorse seemed to be thinking quite a lot. "Five million, twenty-eight thousand and eighty-one years old. We turn all turn five million, twenty-eight thousand and eighty-two years old next Valentine's Day!"

"And yet you can't grasp something most five year-olds get?! **SPIDERS. ARE NOT. INSECTS! THEY ARE ARACHNIDS! I AM AN** _ **ARACHI**_ **MORPH! DO I HAVE TO BEAT THAT IN TO YOUR SKULL?** "

"Uh, you could try, but I'm like, this really tough kickass guy. Although I just sensed that Faminehorse was killed."

Darlene's eyes lit. All... what, nine of them?

"Say... and how _did_ he die?"

"Um, Melody said some magic spell thing and- heyyyyyy... I'm not telling you how to kill us! Because then, like, I'd die and stuff? Because of you dudes?"

"Melody's magic spells... Melody's magic spells..." Keeping her form, she turned to Soos. "Do you know any of them? Did you overhear her when she chanted those things?"

Soos shook his head.

"Well... I'll just... do you have _anything_ that could clean this up?"

"Yeah, actually! I have loads of cleaning chemicals from the Soap Squad Captain."

"Are you two still-"

" _Kind of._ "

"Kind of?" Admist her still moving away from the raw disease, Darlene tried to force a small laugh. "I thought you wanted to know me more! Isn't this... people... knowing each-other?"

"Yes, but that's really personal! I'm... I'm just... I've been drifting apart around the end of our time on the island, and uh... I kinda broke up with most of them..."

"Hey." Pestilencehorse interrupted their conversation. "Speaking of personal... like, ya'shall sound like this is getting pretty wicked, dude."

"Why?" Soos asked. "If we say 'yes,' will you... leave?"

"Yeah. Back to my dimension, where you guys can't even reach me... wait, can I even do that with the whole Pyronica-teather thing?"

Soos snapped his fingers. "Shoot! I thought I got him for a second... okay, no. You don't have to leave."

"Rad! Now..."

Then the green germ-gas spread over both of the fighters, coating the entire room.

Even the previously-quiet Yellow and Orange Sage-Guides spoke up after that happened, coughing along with Soos and Darlene.

"This is awful! I hate these bacteria!" Shouted Darlene's Guide.

Soos's just tried to smile through it. "But... Orange," she said, "they are... um, alive too? So we should... heheheheh..."

"Like, they're not really alive though dudes." Said Pestilencehorse. "Well... kind of. But they are not Earthly."

It took 'Not Earthly' for Yellow to actually have a reaction. Her eyes stared at the horse-man, giving a similar - if less intense - burning look as she did to Soos earlier in the dungeon.

"Okay." She said. "Soos. Darlene. _Kill them._ "

Of course, they were already well on their way to trying something similar to that. Both Keepers braced through coughs, already feeling the fatigue of the disease hitting them _hard._ Soos especially felt the difficulty of movement, the mucus starting to leak out - and turning from clear to a thick, bright green _quickly_ \- and being pushed towards the edge of puking his guts out.

"Ha! Brahhhhh... rad! I've gotcha in my sick Sick Zone! Yeah, I said 'sick,' like, twice. It's a totes, you get it, 'sick' as in the compliment, then the next 'Sick' - capitalized this time - is because you're gonna get infected and all."

Even Darlene's breathing got a bit heavy. "You... you jerk!"

"...I don't really wanna be a 'jerk,' but like... more of a... evil mastermind. And I think they do all 'quick and painless' and crap. So sorry..."

She (barely) managed to make her way towards Pestilencehorse, but then the beast-man actually _moved._ Specifically, he swung his arm towards her mid-section, managing to land a good bruise on that.

"Sh'all." He said. "Just give up."

"No! We have to fight the fatigue! We have..." She noticed Soos, barely crawling around. "And 'we' means WE! Soos! Get up! Guides! What are you doing?"

"I thought we already told you." Yellow said with a shrug. "We are... intangible right now. Think of us as using the power of _hope_ to win."

Orange rolled his eyes. "Sorry, but we're not. We're just kinda both doing nothing. And this is coming from a guy who believes just dreaming and being determined gives you what you want. I mean, it's a lot easier to follow through in a world where that means you can make weapons out of nothing just by fighting spirit alone. Man, I wish I was in that world... that sounds cool..."

"Argh!" Darlene growled.

In between coughs, Soos managed to get out the following: "Hey... try... throwing me, at him. I think I can stall him and, like, junk."

She had a split-second of hesitance, but ultimately followed his suggestion - he flew over to Pestilencehorse as a result of the plan, using his Blade to hack and slice at him. Despite the amount of power he was putting in to his swings (especially against the crippling sickness), at most he was just causing some minor cuts.

"Dude, I'm gonna heave on you." Soos said. "I feel pretty sick right now. Just a head's up."

"Aw- oh, _NO!_ " Pestilencehose finally rose his voice. Just slightly, not to the extent of Faminehorse's dying words, nor of Warhorse or Deathhorse's default dialogue. "Shoot brah, get off then!"

What followed was a little hard to see thanks to the green cloud of germs, but it could still be discerned that he tried reaching his kinda-slimish arms behind his head to try to grapple Soos. That didn't work. He then tried leaping around in place to buck Mr. Mystery off, while Soos kept slicing and stabbing with the Light Keeper Blade. That didn't work. Soon, Pestilencehorse found himself staring face-to-face with Darlene, who jabbed at him annoyingly twice with her own Blade.

"The more you throw me around," said Soos, "the sicker I'll get. It's like, basic biology. I kinda wonder how much about that you really know, since you call spiders insects. _Everyone_ knows they're not."

"Argh! Fine!" The green cloud was already clearing up, and Pestilencehorse stomped again. "I'll call off the sickness! It's no fun when my enemies are weak anyway. I like facing the big dudes with their fullest power! And that means you, spider monster, since you're the biggest!"

"What about a lot of little dudes?" Darlene asked rhetorically, making sure to tilt her multi-eyed head just a little to get that last bit of focus from him.

It was then that the second Skeltaur Knight noticed the spiders starting to crawl in to the room the group was fighting in, and slowly work their way up his back legs. He leaped himself forward - Soos _still_ managing to keep a hold on.

"Stop it stop it stop it stop it _GAWSH,_ I really hate having those things crawl all over me! I'm _sickness,_ not awful insect infestations!"

"Okay, I already corrected you on that once." Darlene put a hand to her mid-section. "That's it. We're gonna finish you off now, with a new attack that'll hopefully work. Guide! Can I throw some soul-stuff on Soos's sword, and that will like combine the elements?"

The Orange Sage-Guide nodded. "It's not as powerful as that fusion Red told me about that you used to kill some cultist woman, but it should still be pretty good."

"Okay, great! Soos, can you get your sword so that you can... uh, use it to pick something up? If this misses, it might hurt you."

His reply was a short and simple "Got it!"

The room then turned azure with a bright flash of spiritual light, blue flames appearing around both Darlene and her Blade. She flicked it only once, and that already caused a roaring ghost-fire to be shot over to Soos's position. Chuckling, he managed to catch it with a swing of his own Blade, and focused on the result.

Said result was that his sword was coated in it, and said spirit-coating immediately flared up and turned all sorts of bright colors. The flames no longer just had hints of faces, but rather the upper halves of full nude bodies appeared along the rainbow fires, smiling faces of the deceased that enjoyed the temporary pocket of Heaven the combined attack gave, more of them being attracted to the spiritual-light hybrid, as they were previously invited to Darlene's solo blast. A woman-ghost in particular even turned over to Soos and said "Thank you," as her breasts bounced around and nearly sliced Soos up with their oddly-hard nipples.

"Woah..." said Pestilencehorse, watching the colorful spectacle. "Psychedelic..."

And that was enough of a distraction for Soos to swing his Blade down, the ghosts that had gathered within being more than happy enough to generate their own swords from nowhere and attack his neck, while the rest of the ectoenergy combined with the holy might to blast at him even further. Soos was _finally_ knocked off of Pestilencehorse, except that the horse-man already had a gaping gash down his mid-section. Green blood oozed down from it as the spirits left, and he completely went to the same volume as the other Skeltaurs had:

 **"I WISH UPON YOU... DISEASE!"** Pestilencehorse shouted, before being blown up in a green explosion.

 _Your bones feel hollow, as though they become liquid, unable to stay stable._

Another strange message that entered the minds of all Keepers. Again, there was some truth to that - for a few moments, bones and joints and the like ached considerably. And they felt a bit wobbly, Soos and Darlene in particular struggling a bit to stay standing, even after the former returned to her humanoid appearance. But again, that faded.

"Okay, cool." Said the Orange Sage-Guide. "Now I feel a lot better about leaving you two - just for a sec! - to activate this temple. Once I'm done with the first part, which should be fast, hopefully it'll get rid of that violet glow crap that's keeping you from just blasting that pileup blocking the warp room with your swords."

"Oh," said Soos right after Orange sunk through the ground, "can't you just do that to the other two temples? Activate them and _then_ we get the Guides?"

"The temples can only be activated by their respective Sage-Guide." Red explained that. Soos and Darlene both heard her voice over their swords. Even Yellow raised an eyebrow at that. "Yeah... it corresponds with the energies of the Guides themselves. We... kind of telepathically measured that ourselves, while we were sealed. We have the blueprints of all of our temples in mind."

"Hey, Red!" Soos cheered. "I haven't heard from you in, like, forty minutes! Why did you answer though?"

Soos, Yellow, and Darlene _all_ flushed a bit after hearing Red take a deep breath in. They knew the answer.

"Because my Keeper and Melody... uhhhhnn... they wanted... 'alone time...' I think. I didn't want to ask! I just left them!"

Darlene first bit down _**HARD**_ on her knuckles. But... fighting against that, she inched her way to Soos and patted him on the shoulder.

"You should get there ASAP." She said, smiling at him. Coincidentally, that was just when the violet around the debris faded. "Now, I normally don't believe in polygamy...

"Which is exactly why I think you should keep them apart and stay with just .GIFfany. You already... made a _lot_ of progress on that just before we saw Zephieye on the island for the first time."

"Wait... you ship me X .GIFfany? And you think I really, like, permanently broke up with the other .GIFfanys? I... didn't? I said we should work things out and not rush."

"Oh no, did I reveal too much?" Asked the Red Sage-Guide. "I... I shouldn't have done that! I should have asked first, if anyone else was around! I know that relationship was supposed to be personal - that's why they asked for _alone_ time! Argh, I'm so stupid!"

After a brief tensing at Red's comment, Darlene looked back to answer Soos first, but quickly. She gave a half-efforted shrug. "What can I... say? I just think that you two, uh, kinda compliment each other?"

"...How? I mean, I like how we're finally getting along about something, but at the same time, I don't know what you mean by .GIFfany and I 'complimenting.' What about me and Melody?"

"That's hard to pin down! But... if I were given a choice, I would say... that the thing about you fixing her is... uh..."

She kind of slumped.

"I want something like that too. That's all. You actually made .GIFfany a better person. Most of the men I've known my whole life just make those around them _worse._ Decency is _rare,_ you know, and people who spread it are even rarer."

"I can't take all the credit! If it wasn't for Melody, we... wait, that's a good idea for something to think about. A parallel universe."

"What? You mean like those things Ford studied. And then... walked around for thirty years?"

"No, I mean like a fan fiction- nevermind. We'll talk more about it after going back to the ship. Because, I mean, the three-hour time limit!"

"I think it's about two hours now."

"Not helping! No offense, sorry."

* * *

"Come on! Why do you people keep hiding from me! In my opinion, my ability to get rid of your electronic powers while keeping my own ghostly skills puts me in an advantage over you!"

The main fourteen Squad Captains all huddled behind some crates, and by the loaded and secured Stan o War II. The Weapons Captain looked like she was about to explode.

"...It's hardly a fucking opinion! It's almost fact!" She half-whispered through her teeth. "Ectoenergy Squad Captain! Have you _finally_ found the right spell? I thought as a professor-type of sorts, you would have that shit memorized!"

She casually thumbed through a bright yellow booklet. Upon finding a certain page, she shrugged, then took out Journal 3. The yellow-haired .GIFfany then flipped the latter book to the page it was already bookmarked on, then moved the books around a bit. One on top of another. Yawning, she finally got the right combination.

"Alright you ass, it is time to stop bothering us. You are annoying." She said. "Uh... let's see..."

The Weapons Squad Captain sighed, stood up, and nearly backed-

She froze when she felt someone behind her, and whipped her head around. She only caught a glimpse of who was over by those crates, enough to make out that it was indeed one of their own. A figure, with some... deep mint-green features that were _not_ covered with shadow at least? Glowing eyes, of that similar dark green shade. And an expression that looked like the figure was about to bite. As the spirit of the Cultist drew closer, the shady figure disappeared in a similarly-shaped red, green, and blue outlines, which all vanished shortly after.

"Twelve?!" Asked the Weapons Squad Captain. "Is that you?! What are you doing here! Zephieye disabled our powers! How did you get those to work?!"

No reply. The figure did not return. Instead, a certain _other_ one spoke up:

"AHA! I found you! Finally!" Zephieye's voice echoed through the hijacked ship(s). She swept by, and a trio of .GIFfanys that were just under where she happened to be ended up in that same eye-glowing state as the group Ghost Zephieye initially brought out. In response, the Ectoenergy Squad Captain just spoke the following:

"And I already found the incantation that'll capture you. Bravo, Zephieye."

Then she read off the same exact thing Dipper used in _Northwest Mansion Mystery_ , with the yellow book really just being there because she wished she could partake in something new and bring in an additional element Ford was not already aware of. There's two reasons why I'm not detailing the process right here: One: I hate copy-pasting from canon so much that even little things like this... eh, I don't know. Two: I'm too lazy to look it up on the _Gravity Falls_ fan wiki (no offense to "Northwest Mansion Mystery," in fact I loved that episode and it saved my interest after that godawful 'love'-drug fan fiction that was "The Love God"), and Wikia both chugs my computer and at times when I leave it idle on a page it shoots it over to shady sites. I have not had that problem with GameFAQS and stuff, or even smaller, obscure zones that are probably more suspected to carrying viruses (Although thanks to the choices picked for Googleads, many of those sites are lag hell). Uh, you might wanna get that checked out in that case.

And thus, Zephieye's ghost was anti-climactically defeated, just in time for Soos and Darlene to run over to the group as the Ectoenergy Squad Captain completed the exorcism. Both of them held their Blades out, but upon seeing the Cultist's ghost ascend to the afterlife, they both slowed down and brought their weapons closer.

"My Blade can control spirits, and- whatahuh?" Darlene outright stopped in her tracks when she said that post-hyphen part.

Oh yeah, and Orange had re-joined them. That too.

"Oh." Darlene continued. "We... we heard that your ship was lifted up without your knowledge, and when we got here, we saw some possessed AIs and... that gray-haired one with glasses... the Legal Squad Captain? Said she was fighting against the Cultist's ghost before _she_ ended up getting mind-controlled..."

"Sorry we didn't take the warning signs sooner!" Said Soos. "First it was because we were occupied by Pestilencehorse. Then it was because we spent a few seconds talking about our feelings and stuff... a little... I should have jumped in sooner, I know!"

"That is alright!" Said the Weapons Squad Captain. "Regardless of what your Blades can do, you should never feel obligated to lay your lives down on the line for us! Think of it as just a little extra bonus for making up for all the horrible shit we did back before .GIFfany made us and we were technically... uh, part of her memories or something?"

Darlene looked around the room, seeking any trailing remains of the Cultist, before she weighed in: "Ixnay on the illingkay. .GIFfany's recovering from that. I think. She's been through more than enough drunken depression over her guilt being forgiven."

The gray-skinned derivative folded her arms, shooting a deathly look to the spider-woman.

"That is for _Soos and Melody_ to decide. And Dipper. And Stan. And the people who were at Hoo-Ha's at the time. And the people around the mall when Prime attacked. And... I guess, Mabel. Not you. None of us ever really attacked _you._ Except for when we tried to stop you from stopping .GIFfany's punishment, which was a light thing."

"What about when I used that love potion thingy on you? You broke free from it and tried to kill me."

"I was not trying to _kill_ you. And I legitimately hated that drug shit, it took a _lot_ of talking to convince me that you using it to command our enemies is not the same thing as forcing two people to 'love' one-another 'just to test if it will work out.' GUH! How fucking creepy! Can you believe..."

She started trailing off, which got a laugh out of the Fire Squad Captain.

"Hey," Soos said, playing around a bit with his Blade, "do you think you can take us to the other temples? Like, drop me off at the purple one so I can see and help my uh... date buddies?"

"And I want to help the Stans. The more firepower, the better." Darlene added.

"If you asked me, as someone who has memories of the Cultist at her strongest," the Fire Captain continued patting the Weapons Captain on the shoulder, "I think you should _both_ go to the Purple Temple if it's patrolling with Cultists."

"Nah. You guys need your privacy."

The Soap Squad Captain's eyes immediately looked over to the ground, as she started drawing air in through her teeth. "Did... you forget? Or, did none of us tell you? ...We're not _that much_ 'you guys' anymore. I mean, Soos is with me. But... he kind of... uh..."

"I _sorta unofficially_ 'broke up' with everyone but her, Prime, and Melody." Soos answered for her. "But... Melody and, I think, Prime are still cool with them."

"It's hard to tell!" Soap spoke up. "Her alcoholism was a huge buzzkill! Pun unintended."

* * *

Ah, the outskirts of Portland.

I don't actually know that much about Portland, so let's just skip to the temple.

* * *

"Boy, it sure is kind of spooky walking down these halls all by myself..." Soos said as his _still_ -bare feet trailed down the shadow-soaked purple stone, "I find it weird that Darlene still stuck with that I needed my privacy."

It kind of _clicked_ when he heard the moaning coming further down the hall.

He lept back and held his Blade up defensively when he sensed someone right behind him - he still felt a bit nervous when he found out it was just the Red Sage-Guide.

"Uhhhhh... Yellow!" Said the first-rescued of the Guides. "Yellow Yellow Yellow Yellow! ...Yeah, just you, right? Darlene didn't come with Orange too?"

The thicker Guide floated out of Soos's rear end, the result coming close to burrying him between the total of the four breasts.

"What is it?"

"...You should, uh, stay out with me! Soos, you can walk forward, but uh... .GIFfany and Melody are... well, how do I say this... uh-"

"Having sex?"

"...Yes? Yes. Yes! Yes...? I tried to tell them not to, and I _really_ do not know how to put this without obliterating their privacy, but Melody just insisted and... and... I had to leave their room. Soos, all you have to do is go left, then right, then - oh, you heard the moaning. Just follow them! ...Soos?"

"I kind of wish you guys didn't turn solid for this part. I mean, there's barely any room here even." Soos said, barely able to be audioble through the faceful of daffodil-colored flesh. With a particular crimson nipple just behind him, almost touching his body.

Red backed up, but it seemed to take a little longer for Yellow to understand. Not that that was much of a problem, as Soos simply moved out from his Guide's chest and darted his way down.

"R-right!" Red answered a little bit too late. "S-sorry!"

* * *

Melody was in utter delight as .GIFfany managed to keep herself up against the wall. Because of the height difference, the latter had to somewhat slump a bit in order to have the best reach to her pseudo-wife's ass. It was well more than worth it; both of them battled with kisses and the occasional bite, and .GIFfany kept a tight grip on her target while mainly trying not to salavate everywhere.

.GIFfany's hip movements practically set her lover on fire, Melody's entire body shaking from the reminder of just how intense the love-game was compared to her own experience. Tentacles began to join the former-sim in their quest to get as much of Melody's butt as possible, and that just gave her an idea.

"If you like this so much..." Melody placed one hand on .GIFfany's chest, beginning to turn around. "I should be a good girl and give you better acc _ESS._ Ac...SASS? Wait... sorry, that pun sounded better in my head."

"You mean to say 'a good woman-' oh, now it is my turn to say I'm sorry. 9 got in my head."

Melody grinned as she flipped around, chubby butt almost making contact with .GIFfany's hips.

"But first, a little tease..."

"No, please don't twerk! If _you_ twerk, I'll... I'll... I'll cu-"

She shook her sweat-coated butt just ever-so slightly, and only parts of it ever-so tapping against .GIFfany's thighs. As .GIFfany kept her eyes on the large spheres of skin with a glistening valley running through them, she just gave.

With one last sigh-moan, .GIFfany reached a hand down to cover her crotch as she fell over to the side, a few droplets managing to hit the ancient sacred floor below.

"...Really? Already?" Asked Melody. "...I thought you were just playing when you said that."

"Hey dudes, that looks like fun!" Soos said, standing proudly with his sword ready. His Keeper Blade was held up in his hands too. "So, who's the dragon this time? Wait, is one of you the knight, or the princess?"

"We're not playing those games right now." Melody said. "We were just told there was nothing to do, because we couldn't access the ship after it flew off and the Blue Temple's already almost finished or something? .GIFfany put a hand around my shoulder, her Guide freaked out and ran away, and we both think she started a rumor that we were... doing it."

"But you were."

"That's what gave us the idea!"

Soos shrugged. "Okay."

"Well, with that explained..." Just as .GIFfany was about to uncover herself, Melody happened to turn and duck just so that the former's groin was conveniently covered by Melody's back. (It's just those three. .GIFfany no longer felt the need to censor herself.) Ass in the air, she shook it a few more times to Soos's direction, watching his body suddenly turn sixteen shades redder as she stepped closer. "Wanna join?"

No response. Melody just twerked more.

"Come on Soos..." her ass outright rubbed against his entire mid-section, but was focused below the waist, "it's safer to just wait for the Stans..."

"Uh, how do I say this..." He rubbed his shoulder, carefully stepping forth. "Melody, I really feel like I'm-"

* * *

"So... I know this is the millionth time I've asked, but you too?" Melody asked. She stood above her two lovers, Soos holding his crotch in embarassment, .GIFfany happily licking creamy white liquid off her fingers. It's ice cream, okay? Soos had some in his inventory, and accidentally spilled it. And those droplets when .GIFfany fell were of bottles of water from the Water Squad, which she also kept in her inventory. The bottle just leaked a little. "I barely twerked in front of both of you, and... I'm not even the part-succubus here!"

"We .GIFfanys all really like your butt! I mean, _look at it!_ " Said Prime. Melody turned her hips so that her rear was facing them - covered with white splatter, with the exception of a hand-shaped print. " _Ahhhh... yeah..._ I mean- Soos has no excuse. He is not as... uh, I think 'single-focused' as we were."

"I do have an excuse! I was looking at Darlene naked the entire time, then the Orange guy. But that was okay, right until I was right between Red and Yellow. I was stuffed between them and they were rubbing against me for several minutes... look, if .GIFfany shook her butt after trying to get through _that,_ I would have done the same thing. You guys know I'm a total butt dude."

Sighing, Melody walked over to the other two, and lied down on her front. .GIFfany lightly spanked her on the ass, picked up her re-coated hand, and began eating off of that. Part-succubi or whatever _love_ ice cream. And uh, what did I say? Water.

"...What are you even doing?" Melody asked.

The AI replied as though it was an obvious question. "Trying to figure out a way to get maximum enjoyment from this! Touching your butt and eating my meal... I am evening the time I spend doing that out a little.

"Speaking of your butt. Think of it more as that you have a secret weapon! You should have used it against Zephieye!"

"Zephieye is a prude." Melody continued to lie down, looking as though she was tanning her back, except she obviously couldn't inside what was not just a temple, but one devoted to Darkness. "She would have just tried to kill me even more if I twerked. And she would have said something like 'BWAH, you're exposing harmful demons to children!' or something like that. Even though there are no kids around!"

"...Well, we can think of something your butt can be used for."

"I don't understand why _everybody_ is obsessed with _my_ butt! It's fat! I eat a bit of junk food! I rarely work out! And now, because of that, I'm part of some Earth-saving prophecy?!"

"Yeah, I don't really understand what my butt has to do with it." Said Soos, who started to become embarassed for a different reason. "...And why it's apparently just like a woman's. I'm sorry, but Yellow's butt does not look like mine! I do _not_ have a lady's butt! I've seen a _lot_ of them recently, in person! I know the difference!"

"...Well, since Red said that all the other Guides are guys, that means that my butt matches a dude's." Melody laughed. "But... uh, Red said it was this dude with long hair? Wait, what's his build, again?"

"Speaking of Red," said .GIFfany, "shouldn't we call the Guides back?"

" _Not_ with my butt looking like a Jackson Pollock painting. Thank your Art Squad Captain for telling me who that guy was."

.GIFfany sighed. "Fine. I will clean it up completely. Soos, you look for the Guides."

"Why me?"

"Do you want to switch jobs?"

"RED! YELLOW!" He began walking down the hall. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"Yeah, sorry!" Melody cried from that barrier-point. "I normally try to take your side on things, but this time I'm with .GIFfany!"

* * *

When Soos returned, he was swinging his Blade at just about any shadow that moved, running as though there was some horrible beast _right behind him,_ and rarely if ever blinking.

At the barrier, Melody was just as cleaned as ever, with .GIFfany giggling becides her. Both of them stood so that Soos could see their asses when he ran in. And once he did, he immediately calmed down and gave a huge sigh of relief.

"Hey, Soos!" Melody said, as upbeat as ever. "...I don't see the Guides, so I feel comfortable saying that I'm all licked down now!"

Winking, she affectionately bent over and just lightly gave her ass a playful shake - and .GIFfany turned pink again, moaned, and collapsed on the floor.

"Oh, _come on!_ This is just, like, 90% Doritos and Mountain Dew!"

Soos still kept walking until he bumped in to the barrier, getting Melody's attention.

"Huh? Is something wrong?"

"Very wrong! I remembered where the Guides were, and I went over to them... and I found _THIS_ note!"

He went in to his inventory and took out a sheet of paper. A _black_ sheet of paper. There, written in white text that was made of several bone shapes, were the following words:

 _ **I WILL TAKE YOUR GUIDES.**_  
 _ **THEN YOUR SWORDS.**_  
 _ **THEN YOU.**_  
 _ **THEN YOUR LOVED ONES.**_  
 _ **FAMINE, PESTILENCE, WAR... YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO EVADE AND OUTSMART THEM.**_  
 _ **BUT THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM DEATH(HORSE, DESTROYYYYYER OF LIFE!).**_

"That's bullshit," said .GIFfany, having recovered from her second orgasm, "Ford and I figured out that all you have to do is-"

"They have the Guides?!" Melody asked. "They're... like, our guides to the temple! And the butt destiny stuff! ...Oh, _that's_ what they're the 'Guides' of. I _finally_ get it."

"What do we do?" Soos placed his hands on his head. "Yellow was how Darlene and I got to save Orange!"

"Okay, don't panic!" Melody said, looking at the taunting panel keeping the crew out. "Don't panic... I think around the barrier, we're safe. So... we should not leave until after Stan and Ford are done with the Blue Temple, and have the last two Skeltaurs killed. ...Whever they are..."

* * *

"I told you, I don't know!" Explained the Green Sage-Guide, floating around in the water-filled interior of a particularly large room in the Blue Temple. (I'm sick of it always being hallways or the major rooms.) "The others, they just... I lost signal! I can still communicate with Blue and Purple, but even Blue's kinda fading out on me!"

"Can you talk to Soos and his friends through the swords?" Stan asked. "Are they okay?"

"Y... yeah, they seem to be. But this is serious, who could re-capture the Guides like this? Hold on... yeah, I asked them through the Blades. They said the note was signed by Deathhorse. But... that doesn't make any sense! As powerful as Deathhorse is, he shouldn't be able to-"

"Alright! Just tell them to stay by that guard, if you think that's the best option!"

"Like I said many times, it is. That mini-barrier will help slightly weaken any supernatural forces not aligned with the Keeper - based on what energy Red sent me, it was made by Pyronica herself, not exactly the Skeltaurs, but it's 'tied to the Skeltaurs' lives.' Don't ask me how that works, I don't have the time to explain all of it. Red might, but not me."

"Ford, we have to- Ford?"

"PYRONICA!"

The naked author and shouter of the above made a dash down the water, charging towards something that Stan could not quite make out. At least, not until three colorful lights flared up - red, orange, and yellow.

A grinning Pyronica stood at one of the pathways leading out of the room, holding a gigantic black chain in her right hand while her left was kept behind her back. Wrapped around that chain were those missing Guides - Orange, uncomfortably crammed between the bosoms of Red and Yellow.

"WHEN I WAS THINKING ABOUT MEETING UP WITH RED AGAIN, THIS IS _NOT_ WHAT I HAD IN MIND!" Yelled the Orange Sage-Guide.

"You better not think about teleporting away from me _this_ time, you awful witch!" Ford cried, immediately taking a good six or so tools out of his inventory. He fired-

The shots were deflected by what appeared to be some black rippling in space itself. The Anti-Sage's Keeper laughed.

"Wanna know a little seeeeecret?" She said. When Ford tried to rush towards her, a similar wave ended up pushing him back, sending him skidding through the shallow surface. Even with the dim lighting, it was very obvious that a bit of blood mixed in with the seawater. "If you cared, you might know that I use my right hand for things."

"We didn't even notice!" Said Stan.

"Well, guess what? It's _PLOT TWIST TIIIIME!_ "

She extended her left hand, swirling around some extremely dark object. She stopped the spinning soon, holding the object out and faced towards them - a black Keeper Blade, with square-like particles slowly moving from it.

"SURPRISE! I'm left-handed! Also, I kind of got my Blade _way_ before any of you guys but it was useless back then and if you knew that grabbing your Blades would make mine stronger you wouldn't do it so I waited until something _else_ would force you to get the Blades, but... let's not focus on the little things, shall we?! Oh, hey, you know what Keeper Blade means?! Keeper Blaaaade means Keeper _GUIDE!_ Say hi to the world that you're gonna doom, Anti-Sage!"

She turned around and gave her pink rump a few smacks, with the brothers and Green watching in horror as it soon turned pitch-black. Breaking from it with a loud _BANG_ that sounded like dynamite going off was what first seemed like a mass of blackness. And from that blackness, a colossal grin shone through.

The mass moved, revealing that it was actually yet another ghostly being, with the 'mass' just being long hair.

Her body was pale gray to the point of being nearly white, covered in dark freckles. As she stretched out, her utterly gigantic breasts flopped out in such a way that Stan and Ford were both puzzled at how her lengthy hair was able to hide them in the first place. Licking a gray tongue along her lips, she slowly leaned back and spread her legs apart, making it very clear that her crotch was covered by the region around it itself constantly distorting visually, whenever similar black particles from Pyronica's Blade did not do the same thing.

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, ANTI-SAGE?" Pyronica gave the most caustically sarcastic ask she possibly could. "SAY HI! LIKE I SAID, SAY HI!"

 **"I do not have to listen to you."** Replied her Guide, keeping the grin. That, however, made Pyronica drop hers. With a giggle, the grayscale ghost flicked a hand, which spawned a pair of what appeared to be circular glasses over her eyes. **"There we go. I alvays thought I looked better vith these."**

Green looked like he was about to flat-out pounce, but he and Ford both caught their attentions when Darlene walked in.

"Hey guys, good news and bad news," she walked with her eyes closed, smiling as she took in the sea air (well, again, considering the four months spent in the middle of the ocean). "Bad news, I can't find my Sage-Guide. I stopped hearing from him as I walked through the temple. Good news, I'm joining you and I have my own Bla-"

Then her eyes opened, and she saw the chained Guides.

"Oh. Is that bad?"

"You're damn right it is!" Said the Green Guide, looking as though his head was about to explode. "BLACK! ANTI-SAGE! I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!"

He flew up in the air, causing a few weak gusts of wind to pick up around him. Pyronica and her associated Sage-counter both shared a good laugh at that.

 **"Really? Vithout your fullest povers?"** Asked the Anti-Sage. **"Oh, you are in for a disappointment..."**

She made a gun with her thumb and index finger right when Green was about to charge at her, then 'fired.'

A black bullet shot the Guide straight through the chest. He looked to be in pain, but the attack did not seem to be fatal. It was only after more chains were wrapped around him - the point that was shot grew a black 'light' on both his chest and back, which was where the chains emerged from - that the intent of the attack became more clear.

Green was pulled over to the other three Sage-Guides, the chains around him merging with those around the others.

"I don't know why Deathhorse tried to take credit for capturing the Sages." Pyronica explained. "Maybe he had a reason. Maybe he just has an ego. But-"

She dodged the following swipe-attacks Stan, Ford, and Darlene all tried to throw at her, with the latter trying to shoot web for good measure. After enough avoidance, she finally just pushed them all back with an additional shockwave.

 **"Now... van funny think about my bullets you should learn..."** If it were at all possible, the Anti-Sage's grin grew even wider. **"They... really** _ **zhink.**_ **"**

That same black dot from before suddenly showed up in front of the Keeper trio, then began zig-zagging across the temple floor, picking up a storm of water as it passed around. As it went through Ford, smaller black vines appeared to slowly grow around him, again emerging from the bullet's point of contact. The same thing happened to Darlene when it passed through her chest.

"Ha ha, kiss our asses, humans!" Pyronica and the Anti-Sage both turned around, revealing that the latter's butt matched the former's in their similar double tear-like shape. Both of them smacked their aformentioned discussed parts at the same time.

Just before the bullet went to Stan, however, he took the mysterious mask from his inventory, stared down the Feminine Flame Beta, and yanked out all of the tabs.

* * *

"G-guys!" Melody said to a pale Soos and a trembling .GIFfany, both of which held their Blades towards their ears. "I can barely hear out of your swords! What's going on over there?! I hear splashes and... something!"

Soos just fainted, something both of the other two Keepers spent the following few seconds watching.

"...Do you want the short story or the long story?" .GIFfany asked.

"I don't know... the short story?"

"We're fucked."

* * *

Bonus... probably not, considering how these explain a lot. Maybe they are just character-relevant 'flashbacks' instead of extra side stories?

 _Three months, three weeks, and three days after landing on Fanservice Island. One week until the ship reached its full energy._

"This is the life!" Cheered Stan. "Boy, brother, after everything we've been through our whole lives leading up to that summer in Gravity Falls, what could possibly tear the two of us apart?"

Ford's eyes scanned a number of papers, keeping his face close to them.

"Hopefully, not Soos's test results. I don't think _that_ will... well, I _hope_ not."

Ford nearly whistled out the air he breathed. "This won't drive us apart, but you might not like hearing what I found about Soos. Afterall, you _did_ strangle .GIFfany back when we saved her from her own other characters."

"...What test results?"

"I'll explain it later. Soos gave me permission to tell this to all of you, anyway." He started to fold it up for storing in a pocket of sorts, then looked down at his naked body and said a short "Oh, right..." to himself, just slapping it in to the inventory. "For now, we should look in to those 'hot springs.'"

"Oh yeah... can't one of those things turn a stick in to a snake?"

"It can turn many things in to snakes! Ironically, it has _less_ of a chance of happening the more snake-like the original object is. But yes... Soos is occupied at the moment, given his 'special date' right now with the Soap Squad Captain. Speaking of her, she now runs those hot springs, correct?"

"Yeah. I've been teaching her a few tricks about how to charge people... when the Basement becomes public. I mean."

* * *

It seemed like ages since Ford last checked out the refreshing springs of boiling water-

Okay, no. Many words of that sentence were lies. Namely, 'water' was definitely questionable. 'Springs' was also kind of iffy; they were more like mini-ponds or something. 'Boiling,' as it turned out, was what it looked like, but some of the pots just kept making air at their bottoms. The problem with the word 'ages' should be obvious, if one takes that to mean 'years' or a similar measurement unit.

...The Soap Squad 'already' (not surprising considering the 'main basement' and the 'volcanic downtown' in just under a week, and how this was the soap area after over three and a half months) managed to start up a pretty decently-sized, cyan city, but they still have not charged Ford.

 _Yet._

The Captain was soon there to greet him, who of course showed up by zipping out of a teal pipe that ran around the entry building.

"HELLO THERE!" She cheered. "WELCOME TO THE SOAP SQUAD'S MAIN SECTOR! ...Well, if I do not call dibs fast enough, it will be the _only sector of the Soap Squad._ Which sucks, because I am positive that people enjoy hot springs way more than all the other crap the other girls- I'm sorry, women, I'm practicing for when 9's around - are offering! You have no need to worry, For **d,** while I will never intentionally call you by the wrong name (I'm not _that_ much of a dick), I am certain you will find plenty of other reasons to _haaaaaate_ me!"

"...Right. Two questions. One, how far is your research in the springs' properties going along? And two... where is Soos?"

"One, bad. I need your help sweetie. Two, Soos..." that question actually got her to look away as she struggled to answer it, "kind of broke a lot of hearts and now he's sort of with me getting comfort. Melody's around here too, if you know where to look, relaxing that carefully crafted by God-marvel of perfection she calls a 'butt.' I prefer 'ass!' It sounds hotter!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the long answer is a little too much TMI, especially the beginning, so I will only tell you the short answer. He broke up with most of us .GIFfanys!"

"Most?"

* * *

Before I get to the point where Soap Squad Captain lists the exceptions, _I_ will be the one to provide you with the long version. It all started last night... from within that 'one week before leaving' flashback. If you're confused now, I can't imagine how you're gonna feel when more of the _ank _ill tools come in to play during this story's climax.

"Oh, hey!" Soos cheered up from the bed, him being the only occupant by the time the Antifire Squad Captain walked in. "631019! Cool, someone else will join me! I guess you don't have any important project to do- no, you finished yours early for the night. Or you got sick of the 'Eat Sushi off of Boobs' contest. Well, you know how I prefer butts myself!"

She held a finger, then quickly rose and lowered a second one a few times.

"Ah, both. Got it."

As soon as she got on the bed, the white-haired .GIFfany derivative immediately slid over to Soos's position and looked him in the eyes.

"...Hi? I still don't really understand you, to be honest. I'm still figuring things out. Fire's not here, so I can't have her translate what you say- uh, not-say. ...How's that 'trying to feel more comfortable talking' going?"

She gently took his hand in hers and guided it to her stomach, letting him feel it rumble a few seconds later.

"...You're hungry?" Backing, Soos flushed a little. "So... are you inviting me to go out to a restaurant with you?"

The captain lowered her head and opened her mouth. Blushing harder, Soos raised his hand to block it from his view, as if she just opened something far more explicit to him.

"...Is that what I think it-"

"I want your cum, Soos! I know I normally do not ask, and am content with eating real food, but I just had a stressful day at work and _need_ the good stuff, so I'm begging you! I want us to fuck until you're completely drained, _destroying_ every bone in my body, and filling all of my holes! I am willing to take whatever form you want! _Please_ Soos, do you want to do it?!"

He just sat there in shock for the next few moments.

"...Look, I'm sorry." Were the first words to Soos's heart once he finally recovered. "I know this is kind of a crappy time to bring this up, but... I don't really think we... might work?"

Antifire looked as though she was just told she was about to die of cancer. Yet she nodded through it.

"I understand. I will not try to force myself on you. Can we at least still be friends?"

"Yeah dude, of course! This isn't even a real breakup yet! I just want some space, that's all."

"Okay."

* * *

And that was only the beginning.

Soon, Squad by Squad, Soos planned to go around announcing over the same general script, calling the others for a meeting. Heck, when it comes to inviting, he would have gone by rainbow order of the 'main' (screentime-wise in _run:gifocalypse_ ) squad captains.

Fire was _not_ happy to see him, even before he began his conversaiton, to put things mildly.

When Soos zipped across the _Futurama_ -esque transport tubes (he still preferred the minecart rides, but the AIs swore up and down that the tubes were quicker, better, and probably safer) to make it to the volcanic portion of Fanservice Island, the Fire Squad Captain was quick to meet him with a sword out, eyes unfocused with her pupils slightly 'shaking.'

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO 631019?!" She asked. "WHY IS SHE DIFFERENT?! SADDER?! DID YOU BREAK HER HEART?! I PUT MY DEAREST EFFORT IN TO HELPING HER! BECOMING HER FRIEND! TAKING GOOD DAMN CARE OF HER! _AND THEN YOU GO, UNDO HER PROGRESS, AND SHIT ALL OVER ALL OF THAT CARE AND KINDNESS!_ I SWEAR TO DEITIES I DON'T REALLY BELIEVE IN (BECAUSE FUCK THE ONE I _DO_ BELIEVE IN, THAT WOULD BE THE AUTHOR OF THIS STORY AND I HATE HIM), I AM _THIS_ FUCKING CLOSE TO KILLING YOU RIGHT NOW!"

Part of Soos wanted to just run the hell out of the room. Except he was not in a room, unless one counts the inside part of the tube's exit. He was on the very edge of the volcano, just before it bled in to what was now a red city channelling lava in to itself.

" _Woah._ " He said, looking around to see if any others were willing to step in. Some confused, sleepy-looking AIs slipped out of the various apartment buildings. "Um, I just said we should work on our differences. She was okay with that... I mean, she is an adult. She can handle herself. Are you okay?"

Putting the sword down, she sighed.

"Yeah, I guess I kind of learned that lesson in _run:gifocalypse_ already, I should learn it here too already, especially since this fic is so much less about us than RunGif was. Don't treat Burrda - I mean 631019 - like some helpless little child and spoil slash white knight her. Well, it was kind of badly written back then. I mean, mostly it was just that she revealed she half-wanted you to kill her over there, and then I didn't find out about it until after the fight, and that stuff happened off screen because everything was all like 'Holy shit it's Dove!' I mean 9. And didn't GPF say something about - or _plan on saying something about_ \- not liking it when a story spends too much time building up and expositing on the villains and not enough time on actual character development? I hope he follows through with his rewrite and what the hell am I even talking about?"

"I told 631019 that I feel like rethinking our relationship." Soos braved the elite and stepped out from the tube's exit point. "And... you know what, I'm having second thoughts about you too. I mean, you're kind... up until that outburst right there, but you're also a little too... how do I say this... you're a little too much."

"...I know. A lot of people find the job of dating a high-profile announcer like me... a bit intimidating."

"So, I think I'm gonna take a break from most of you until I decide if I really _like_ like you guys on a personal note or if I was just into you because you love going around naked and gave me and Melody things."

The red-haired coding creation nodded. "Got it."

Aformentioned Weapons Squad Captain dashed between them.

"Woah! Soos, she held a _weapon_ in front of you like that! Are you just going to drop that?"

Soos shrugged. "She apologized."

"Riiiiiiight... we'll work on your over-forgiveness later. Soos, the key to not just jump into bed with another Pre-Island .GIFfany is to be able to stand firm. Be tough."

She pointed a gray finger at the Fire Squad Captain's nude azure body. "And YOU! You are getting a PUNISHMENT for threatening an innocent citizen! With an _actual_ weapon! I don't care if you were just using it to be fancy-"

"I was." Said the heated copy.

"-THAT DOES NOT MATTER, PRIVATE! I mean, uh, general!"

"We're captains."

"General makes more sense."

"Maybe to you."

"Kissing up to me will not change anything! Soldier, ONE WEEK in therapy!"

"Actually," that was said by Soos, "we leave the island in four days."

"Oh." 9 thought it over for a moment. "Well... fuck it, THREE DAYS in therapy! I AM GOING TO CRACK YOU TO PIECES! I WILL CHEW YOU UP AND SHIT YOU OUT BUT NOT BEFORE I SWALLOW YOU BECAUSE HOW DO YOU SHIT SOMETHING IF YOU JUST CHEW IT UP AND SPIT IT OUT?! I WILL TEAR OFF YOUR ARMS AND SHOVE THEM SO FAR UP YOUR ASS THAT YOU COULD MAKE A SHADOW PUPPET SHOW IN YOUR STOMACH! I HAVE NOT EXACTLY BEEN ON GREAT TERMS WITH YOU, AND I AM GOING TO ENJOY PUTTING YOU THROUGH GROUP ACTIVITIES OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT BECAUSE FRANKLY YOUR CHARACTERIZATION MAKES ME SICK! COME UP WITH A BETTER CHARACTER WITH BETTER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, GODDAMMIT! YOU WILL FIND OUT WHY THEY CALL ME 'IRON-ASS NINE,' ALTHOUGH NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT THAT MIGHT BE AN INSULT AND NOT A COMPLIMENT TO MY TOUGH, DURABLE BODY THAT CAN WITHSTAND ENORMOUS FUCKING EXPLOSIONS THAT WOULD MAKE MICHEAL BAY SHIT HIS PANTS IN ADDITION TO THE GREAT ASS WE AIS ALL SPORT!"

"Also, I'm thinking of spending some time like not-dating you too. I'm sorry, but the polygamy life might not be my thing."

The black-haired captain whipped around to face him, silent.

Then her eyes started to well up, and she leaned forward to place her head over Soos's shoulder. Apparently, she forgot that they were just at the edge of a volcano, especially as her hug-tackle lightly pushed him back even more.

 _Then_ she started crying. Loudly. It was barely even a second before Soos could feel her tears (which were also dark) trickling on his shoulder and running down his back.

"Uh... wow." Soos said. "Antifire and Fire took it well. I didn't know you would, uh..."

"Everybody I try to date _dumps me!_ " Weapons said between large sniffs. "I thought I was someone _different!_ An _improvement! Where did I go wrong, Soos?!_ "

"Dude..."

" _I am going to be alone and unloved FOREVER!_ "

"N-no you're not! The other girls-"

"The other women."

"-The other women still love you! And there's always Melody! I talked over this with her a few hours ago, she still wants to date you and stuff!"

"I... I just want to go home..."

Soos hugged her back.

"We all do, 9. We all do."

* * *

"...So _then_ I thought about gathering all of you for a meeting." Soos continued, as this was still the 'long version.' Don't worry, it's almost over with. That up there was the last line break before returning to the 'present' past.

All of the squad captains were there with him sitting along a giant set of bleachers that stretched far and tall in a hot pink building, but for brevity's sake we'll just cover the main ones/RG first-gens. This also means Courtlyn's counterpart will be left out. Oh yeah, Melody and Prime (is she even the captain of anything? Maybe I'll come up with an answer by next chapter) were there too.

"Glad to see you could all make it."

The Fire Squad Captain spoke up before anyone else, as usual: "Just to let you know, 9, 631019, and I all know what this is going to be about. Except the former was crying, the second's still as quiet as ever, and the third - me - just hates giving out spoilers in general. Hahahaha!"

"Urgh, it got _9_ to cry." The Water Squad Captain folded her arms and rolled her eyes. "I think I already know what this is. The only thing that can make that captain break in to tears."

Soos took a deep breath in. "I know it may sound a little mean to direct this to you in-group like this, but I think if I did this one at a time, it would literally take longer than my life. Which is also kind of the problem. You see... I'm doubting whether or not we can work as this... big... huge, quadrillions of quadrillions-"

"Actually, we've hit sextillions for a while now." Said the Ectoenergy Squad Captain. "And the big one oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh is coming soon. That's a septillion, I think - was that twenty-four 'ohs?'" You should be thanking God this is a text-only story, or else that would have been kind of annoying to hear. But if it softens the blow, she said that pretty quickly.

"...Yeah, you're just making my point."

"You could always download yourself in the virtual world and become immortal, giving you unlimited time!" The same yellow-haired AI even kind of gave Soos puppydog eyes. "Melody's actually considering that!"

"Yes, yes I am!" Melody replied in kind with nods.

Sweating, Soos rubbed the back of his head. "Okay, captains, tell your other squads this, for them. You workers, they need to know to, since I was 'dating' them, like, technically? I, uh... I'm not exactly breaking up with you, but I think I need some more time being a little less... you know, male sign surrounded in an ocean of female signs."

"Is that sexist? It sounds sexist." Asked the Wind Squad Captain, as she looked around. "People, especially that ol' Weapons, have been saying that _I'm_ being sexist when I cite the word of _King of the Hill_."

"No, no! Genders have nothing to do with it! I mean, that was a bad example, let me try again- uh... Wind, you're a little too... how do I say this, 'traditional.' I'll just go from there: Plant, I like you, but you get really weird when we talk about self-defense. And Light, you may be cute, sweet, and kind, but those mirrors and your workers... I don't know if we connect. And you're kind of distant, you know? You spent more time on paper work than talking to anyone else combined."

Said squad captain - dark brown skin, chartreuse hair (Professor Shannon) - leaned on her hand as she took the information in.

"I probably have one of the more complicated sectors in the Basement, I agree. Juggling work with love is not that easy."

"Ectoenergy... I just think you're a little rude. Earth, you opened my eyes, but... I wish you had been a little more open to the real world yourself. Fire- oh, sorry, already told you you were 'too much.' Heh, that just makes things more awkward. Um, Paint, you're also a little... rude? Poison, you barely really seem to talk to me too. I mean, I've heard more from Antifire than I've heard from you. Meat, like I said with Earth, getting your head just a little closer to reality might help, because your, uh, you have these 'moments' that weird me out. Water, you're cool, I love how good you are with us, but you need to, like, accept that not everybody else is going to agree with you. You're _pretty bad_ around Stan. I... I don't appreciate that. At all. And Sound, nothing's wrong with your music or performances, I'm not trying to be a critic of your sadness. Just that you're also kind of like Paint and Water. You hate stuff that's not your own views."

"Okay, he's going in reverse rainbow order for some reason, and I'm next." The Soap Squad Captain laughed as she stood up. "Let me guess, I'm the worst one of all now. You have _so_ many problems with me, don't you? I swear, I drink, I smoke, I pull kinda assy pranks, I ride around in loud motorcycles doing donuts everywhere, I'm a bad girl. ...Weaps, you wanna correct me?" ('Weaps' is short for 'Weapons.' In hindsight, it looks more like it would be pronounced the same way as 'weeps.')

"You call men boys too. _You_ are fine." Said the Weapons Squad Captain, who had since stopped crying, but kept her head down in her hands as she slumped through Soos's entire speech.

"Anyway, I'm a bad girl, you're a good man."

"You fucking suck."

"Hahahaha! Anyway Soos, lay it on me, I can take it."

Soos pepped up at that. "Oh actually, I still want to date you!"

"What the fuck?"

"What about me?" Asked an extremely drunk .GIFfany Prime, even shaking her (empty) liquor bottle to emphasize. "I am _terrible,_ I'm physically and mentally the only one that tried to _kill_ you! I was abusive! Why are you even taking me as a friend?!"

"Aw, don't beat yourself up, .GIFfany!"

"We are all named .GIFfany... I think? No, wait, 9 said this was - *hic* - not incest, but... uhhhh... fffffuck what am I saying?"

"You're good now! You learned your lesson, and you're becoming better! Plus, you care about, like, actually being around and hanging out and stuff, instead of trying to make... _things_ to make us happy. Also, Soaps, I love your psychoanalytic-stuff. Don't kid yourself about the 'bad woman' image, you're a good person under all of that too."

"I'm not completely blown up like Prime is, I'm just wondering why you picked me, of _**ALL**_ of us, as the exception." The cyan-haired .GIFfany(?) just shrugged.

"Hey," Melody cut in to the conversation. "Are we still married and everything?"

"Oh yeah, this is just about the Artificial Army!" Was Soos's answer, as he went over towards the bleachers and made his way towards the drunk AI out of curiosity. "I'm just working on their same beep-boop issues."

"I'm still 'beep-boop!'" Prime cried again, for some reason still shaking around the alcoholic bottle. "Programmed to 'love' everything you say and do! This is not natural love, this is just coded obsession-"

"And yet the fucking love potions _are_ 'natural love' and not just 'magic'-coded horse shit-" The Weapons Squad Captain began that before she cut herself off. "Nevermind. After all, Wendy did just send us that message saying that Robbie and Tambry have broken up."

"And I never got any punishment!" Prime finished. "I got away with it _all!_ My disc-burning did not count, because I had a relationship with Rumble there!"

Soos patted her shoulder. "No, you turned against your programming and evolved to something better. And I don't believe in punishment - except to Dave sometimes, _that guy_ that be a pain when he talks about my weight - you're sorry, I forgive you."

"But..."

"Don't let that purple jerk make you beat yourself up! He's been dead for almost four months now. Let it go. The dude judges people based on looks on a one to ten scale, you shouldn't even listen to him to begin with."

"...You have a point. But the Weapons Squad Captain taught me that you can not just point to someone worse than you and use it to get away with what you did."

"To be _completely_ honest..." Melody even seemed surprised at the way Soos directly looked .GIFfany in the eyes, keeping a hand on her shoulder as he said that. "You used to be _worse_ than the Troll."

"I know." She sighed. "And I still am."

"No, you didn't let me finish! I agree with Soos, you _did_ change! You became better than he was! I said this before, I will say it a hundred times if I have to, that guy refused to make his life better. But you did, and now you have the potential to be something amazing."

She finally stood up. "Okay?

"...I'll think about it. Thank you, Soos. That - everything you had done now - was very mature of you."

"I know..." Melody sighed. In a lower voice, she added: "...But what does that say about me?"

* * *

"What does that say about me?" Melody said again, floating on her back along one of the springs.

"Did you say something?" Darlene asked from behind a mud mask, complete with cucumber slices over the eyes. She was in a magenta-tinted spring, sitting with most of her below the water, as if this were a story that was concerned about censoring breasts.

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about Soos."

"You always seem to be. You know, relationships are fine, but you shouldn't just limit yourself to thinking about him, you know? Or .GIFfany, for that matter. Be your own woman."

"This _is_ me being my own woman. I'm trying not to think about my ex and let it ruin my 'vacation' on this island. You know, the magician."

"...So you're thinking about one boyfriend to forget about another. It's still..."

"The magician was a woman."

"In that case... wait, what kind of woman was she? Successful? Poor?"

"A pretty horrible one, and that's all that matters. Look, I'm sorry, but I'll tell you more about her when I tell Soos and .GIFfany, and that's when I feel it's appropriate. It's bad taste to spring junk about your exes. Especially when they have... complicated things."

That got Darlene to sulk a little. "Oh. I know. This is coming from someone who _ate_ her 'exes.'"

From Melody's perspective, it felt like she closed her eyes for _just a few seconds,_ only to open them with the sight of Ford's slightly-toned(? I'm just going off of very loose memory to be honest, but in my defense we never canonically see any bare ass except Pyronica's) ass above her.

"Woah, Ford!"

Ford moved forward in embarassment, an act that nearly made him dip in to the tan spring that he had been measuring with through what appeared to just be a spoon with several blinking lights fixed on it. Explaining the exact mechanics behind that tool will have to wait until later. Thankfully, he did not drop that 'spoon.'

"Melody! Perfect seeing you here! I was testing the weird liquids in these springs while waiting for you and the others to get here for some news. ...Are you now willing to meet me at the doctoral office by the springs when .GIFfany Prime arrives?"

"Yeah, what was it about? Soos practically invited all of us here, it sounds serious."

Ford gave a nervous glance at Darlene, who had since _obviously_ taken notice of them and was just staring at the two.

"...Uh, it's a little personal."

Darlene rolled her eyes behind her mask. "I knew it. I always feel like I'm the one being left out. I don't even know why I'm one of these seven 'butt people' according to that Troll guy. According to the Paint .GIFfany, orange isn't even one of the main six colors!"

* * *

Stan was absolutely shaking in his chair, which was also somewhat of a distance away from the chairs Soos, .GIFfany Prime, Melody, and the Soap Squad Captain all sat in. Then again, the latter seats were all practically touching, so that was not much of a deal.

.GIFfany shuffled her crossed legs impatiently while holding another can of replica-Alamo. To her right was Soap, holding on to Soos's left hand. And he, in turn, locked hands with Melody on the other side.

"Oh, no, these aren't that serious!" Ford elaborated, standing in front of a board containing some scribbles none of the sitting parties could identify. Also standing were the Meat and Plant Squad Captains, the former as nervous and shivering as Stan was, the latter looking down with a face flushed with green. "It's just that the subject matter is a little... personal."

"You have two of the biologists with you..." Stan noticed. "IT'S CANCER, ISN'T IT?! PLEASE DON'T TELL ME MY BOY HAS CANCER!"

"No, no! It's... uh... how do I say this... Soos, your-" he pinched his brow and refused to open his eyes as he said the following: "your semen sample was far too high, and looking through its Trace History had suggested that your body produces far too much."

"Trace History?" Asked Prime. "The fuck, are you just making things up orrrrrr...?"

"No - well, if you count my inventions as that. Anyway, I had to team up with two of the biologists to get to the bottom of this - I... still don't know how helpful the botanist Plant Squad Captain was since you are not a plant, but she apparently worked with the Meat Squad Captain a lot - and to my embarassment this was after you decided to spend some time away to rethink your relationships.

"Now, this was not a problem for your whole life, but something happened around the time we first 'settled here' after beating Zeskit. I estimate it was the night after receiving the news that we would be here four months. Soos, can you think of anything... sexual that had happened around then? Or, extra-sexual, now that I think about it?"

If this were animated, I would have drawn .GIFfany's spirit floating out of her body at that point. It doesn't fit with the spirit of _Gravity Falls_ , but honestly, what the fuck in this fan fic _does?_ Well, if you say the dialogue, I'll be complimented. Now I kind of want this entire story to be like that one _Seinfeld_ visual novel parody where the writing is like something from an actual episode yet there's a lot of other stuff thrown in.

Soos, of course, blurted.

"Oh yeah! I had this _crazy_ -intense dream where .GIFfany and I were just _wild._ I remembered really wanting it, begging her for it, she was like 'noooo I have to be an innocent schoolgirl don't tempt me,' but then she was like 'F-word it, I'm going in,' but she said the real f-word. Or maybe she didn't, and even my own mind just kinda filtered it. That part's hazy. But _not_ the actual sex! _That_ I _still_ remember loud and clear. And I wanted it to be real. And last forever."

.GIFfany's soul just left her again.

"Right..." Ford whipped out a sheet of paper from his inventory, reading it over. The length of it and its tear-marks indicate that it was printed out from some machine specifically used for printing lengthy papers/charts/etc. "So, in theory, perhaps the succubus-like magic involved in giving .GIFfany a physical form, magnified by the sheer magnitude of the .GIFfany number, and based on my readings, _something else_ unique to Soos and not present in Melody, all caused you to undergo an 'odd interdimensional weirdness awakening,' or a supernatural 'second puberty' so to speak. It's a miracle that you're alive for that long; because my readings also indicate that your over-production of semen is reaching lethal levels. Normally, the body breaks down unused sperm and harmlessly absorbs it, but for some reason your body lost that function during your 'awakening.' And your sperm no longer 'ages' the normal way. So the only way to remove the excess semen is either through castration-"

" _Hell no._ " Soos said.

Nobody said a word after that until after he clapped both his hands on his mouth, but all eyes were on him. And I will say right now that until the next time he spoke, he kept his hands there the entire time.

"-Or through enough sex to fulfill a daily quota." Ford finished. "Three times a day _bare minimum,_ but I would recommend ten. There really is no foreseeable upper limit. And it has to be genuine sex. The 'awakening' has also left your body able to tell the difference between sex and masturbation."

"I don't know if you care," said the teal-haired .GIFfany, "but that explains a fucking _lot._ Just the last part you said. Honestly, everything else just confuses things further."

"Now, I understand that you have been dealing with some personal relationship problems as of late. Still, you have three potential mates-"

Ford's speech was cut off when .GIFfany threw herself off her chair and begged at Melody's feet.

" _PLEASE!_ " She shouted.

"What? Are you crazy?" Melody sank back.

"Yes! I think I am!"

"But _three times a day every day_ would kill me! I-I don't have superna- I'm not a succubus like you! Sorry Soos, I just don't have the stamina!"

"I am only... uh, half succubus? I think?"

"No, you're pretty much full succubus. Since you became 'real.'"

"Argh!"

.GIFfany slid across the floor to give the biggest, sparkliest puppy-dog eyes she could to the Soap Squad Captain. Who just took out a cigarette from her inventory, lit it with some cyan sparks, and blew smoke on her face.

"We will be on equal grounds when you get a real job." She said. "Especially since Soos wants us to juggle having a job and being around him. Which is funny, because his solution is to kind of see us _less._ Wait a minute, what _is_ your job? As the first of us, you of _all_ AIs should be a squad captain or something. All the other single, double, and triple digets are squad captains of _something_ now, and we're even looking at quadruples soon once 2180 and 6612 get their acts together. Then again, those two both work for me right now, so I'm not complaining about them. Hell, without them, I would be one step closer to serving customers by myself. Like Darlene over here: HEY, DARLENE!"

"WHAT?!" Replied the sole part-spider customer.

"ARE YOU ENJOYING THE SAUNA?!"

"I ACTUALLY AM! I KINDA WISH YOU JUST DROPPED THAT PHONY BIKER GIRL IMAGE!"

"BIKER _WOMAN!_ "

"BUT YOU SAID GIRL YOURSELF A FEW HOURS AGO!"

"BECAUSE I'M FUCKING WITH YOU!"

"STOP WASTING MY TIME WHILE I SIT HERE AND... WELL, WASTE MY TIME!"

"See? Customer service at its finest. I do not see why Soos would want the other captains to do _more_ of that."

"No..." .GIFfany said in an attempt to correct, "he thought the captains were all too focused on making _things_ for him and Melody instead of being in a _comitted relationship,_ and he's using some space to think about whether or not what he had at the moment counts as a relationship or just a gift-giving contest with sex!"

"I don't see what the problem is. Back when you were actually cool, you would have loved finding out that you had to screw Soos three times a day to keep him alive."

"The problem is that I am trying to change! This is like giving a recovering alcoholic a free bar with unlimited booze!"

"I think it's kind of funny that you said that when you're a literal, not-recovering alcoholic right now." Said Melody. "Just... sorry, I just wanted to throw that out there. Heh heh, you can just ignore that..."

"Look... there's workarounds, okay?" Ford said. "There are a huge number of 'biological loopholes.' Nothing is being forced. If this is too much, we can help-"

Then Stan just lept off his seat, face full of tears, running to hug .GIFfany Prime.

"You don't have to if you don't want to, but I would be so proud of you if you single-handedly save Soos's life! I mean, you technically put his life in danger before, both on purpose and on accident when you pheromone'd him to become some love-creature now, but I strangled you and we forgave each other!"

.GIFfany just blinked.

"So, .GIFfany, what will it be?" Asked Soos. She just replied bluntly and in heavy monotone:

"I think you should alternate between Melody and the Soap Captain."

 **(this "cryptogram" will not be encrypted as this is totes a serious message like i mean come on? honestly?)**  
 **MY YOUNGER BROTHERS HAVE BOTH PERISHED AT THE HANDS OF THE PATRIARCHY, BUT I, WARHORSE, DESTROYER OF PEACE, WILL BRING TRUE JUSTICE IN TO THIS WORLD!**  
 **...WHAT'S THAT? STAN WILL DO** _ **WHAT?**_ **THAT IS SOMETHING I AM GOING TO ENCRYPT... THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL HAVE A** _ **VKRUW PXVLFDO QXPEHU?!**_ **DAMMIT! WHITE PEOPLE AND THEIR PXVLFDOV...**

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

I'll admit, towards the end I was kind of making things up on the fly a bit and went against the 'scheduled' events that would happen in this chapter for the sake of moving the plot forward a bit faster. Heck, originally Pyronica was not supposed to get her Blade until near the very end of the story, but more on that later.

...If anything, this chapter could kind of just be seen as a 'transition' to the final arc, building up to it.

By the way, next chapter will focus almost entirely on Stan, Ford, and Darlene. Yes, I have noticed that I focus a little too much on the .GIFfany / Melody / Soos triangle. Oh, and a head's up, now's the time to stop procrastinating on the Intermission if you haven't read it yet.


	12. War and Death

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 11: War and Death**

 **Beginning AN:**

I would not count this as a Thanksgiving special, but if I did, it would be one _hell_ of a special.

* * *

Drip. Drip. Drip.

When Ford finally regained some sensation, some conciousness, he could tell that he was lying face-up, and that most of his head was surrounded with water. His nose and lips were just _barely_ out of drowning-range. Which naturally caused him to tense a bit, and consider getting the hell up from there.

Oh, yes. And something was dripping on his forehead.

He threw his head awake, half-shook it to get the seawater off, and looked around.

There were still black 'vines' around his skin, but they were dying off and shrinking. He was also still in the Blue Temple. Aside from that, it was difficult to see almost anything in the blue dungeon that was more than about a meter or so-

Except for the number of shadowy, humanoid figures ahead of him.

That got Ford to stand up in a full recovery.

"Who's there?! Who are you?! Pyronica, is that you?!"

He got a closer look as he moved forth, just to see the figures back up.

It was the _anks. Minus Kank Kill, but with the six additional members Wendy once came across during her travels across time with Wank.

"...I am _profoundly_ confused." Was all Ford could say to the massive numbers of near-identical men in front of him.

"Uh, hi there." Answered Yank for him. "We are... were... uh, you see, your brother - I think? Finally pulled the tabs on my mask after four months of us all waiting in the afterlife. We've all been set free, and Kank was teleported over here and he's not very pleased about that because he was just about to battle this Rumble guy and this Wendy girl."

"Afterlife?"

"Yeah. Wendy and her friends took out of of us-" he pointed to them as he said their names. "Me, Yank Yill; Gank Gill; Rank Rill; Pank Pill; Oank Oill; Bank Bill; Mank Mill; and Wank Y. Will. She didn't get us others because they were already fighting Katjus in the base of the Red Temple. Zephieye sent them as a sneak attack on the trolls after Zeskit... _somehow_ gained the upper hand in their fight, and _somehow_ Katjus was able to kill all of 'em."

"Katjus! She's a traitor! Where is she, in fact?"

"...We kinda lost track of her." Yank admitted. "I can scout the living from the dead, and the dead from the living, but the dead from the dead and the living from the living is a lot harder. I think she zipped to the Green Temple some how, hid in its warp room, and waited a bit. She's either... in this temple or the purple one, it's tough to say. Possibly even the red one. Or maybe she's somewhere else that's just near the stone."

"I'm Wank B. Will." Confusingly, that was said by the _ank with the white hair and pants with a _blue_ stripe, meaning that the stripes seemingly _did_ match the initials and were not swapped as with Bank and Gank.

"Wank R. Will." Said the red stripe one. To save your time, they continued like this. Wank P. Will, Wank O. Will, Wank G. Will, and Wank M. Will.

"As a soul communicator," said Yank, "I can view the living through the afterlife - as I had just previously explained. And I must say... well, having four months to think about it with everyone but Kank, I gotta admit. That Lightning Cultist was a nutjob!"

The other thirteen nodded.

"So, we all re-banded and - yes, I can show the others the living world, too. Anyway, we loved your communication and hard work on the island. Impressive, despite the... uh, nudity."

"Say, can I borrow your clothes?" Ford asked with a hopeful shine in his eyes.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but we do not believe in letting another man touch our clothes. And these are the only set we have with us." He said that with folded arms and a grim face. "Anyway, sorry to say this, but you've got... about forty minutes left before Warhorse and Deathhorse complete their portal. So, we better just catch you up while you follow us. I'll show you the way to the Blue Sage-Guide!"

Then he heard Darlene groaning behind him. It was then that Ford realized that he was so fixated on the _anks in front of him that he did not even notice Darlene being right next to him.

"Oh! She's up, too! Perfect!" Yank continued. "Now, follow us, as we explain everything!"

"Where's Stan?!" Ford whipped his head around, as though doing so would suddenly reveal his brother. Oh, and by the way, this took place in yet _another_ hall.

Yank looked off to the side. "Uh, that'll be a part of our story, which we will discuss after a quick recap!"

* * *

 **WARNING:** Enormous fucking 'flashback' ahead. But it will get more and more plot-relevant, so read it. And it's all new material, not like those recap flashbacks that show you what just happened in the same episode. (Looking at you, _Naruto_.)

You already knew what happened to the 'solids' (and Wank Y.; Wendy, by the way, did not hear of the 'Y' in the middle and assumed that his name was just 'Wank Will') in the Intermission. Assuming you DID read it... right? Hah. Anyway, Yank explained that, let's get to the stripes.

Katjus's bare, teal ass swished back and forth as she made sure to exaggerate her hip movements as she walked, like .GIFfany is about to do in this _other Gravity Falls_ parody fic I'm going to work on. (Don't worry, it's not 'parody' as in 'intentionally poorly written and hard to even read/comprehend.') She kept a smirk to her face as she reached the middle of that particular large chamber and took an elevator down.

It was there that she bumped in to Stan, just before she managed to hop on it.

"Hey!" Stan said. "So, which .GIFfany number are you? Something about you seems a bit... different. Like, your face is kind of off. And... do any of them have fur on their bodies like you do? You're also uncensored... is it because that large patch of pubic hair counts as 'censorship' in your culture?"

"Huh? Oh. I'm, uh... .GIFfany... er, two."

Stan cocked an eyebrow.

"...Two two two two two. ...Two. Anyway, catch'cha later. Bye."

Pulling a few switches, the stone around her clicked as the elevator went down.

 _"What?" Ford asked as he and Darlene continued trailing after the colorful men. "Stan saw her way back then and didn't even realize it? I mean, the number she gave was the Plant Squad Captain's number! Seven twos in a row is one of the easiest numbers of the captains to remember!"_

 _"Yeah, I think Stan was there that day for... uh, part of some new workout plan?" Yank replied partly. "I still don't really understand his mind some times."_

 _"I knew that! Now, where did Katjus go?"_

She sighed during the middle of the forty-minute long descent to the lowest part of the temple. It was not that the elevator was not particularly _fast_ \- the rocky walls were blazing past her - it was that the portion she was looking for was really fucking deep.

So she cracked a smirk, and with the same 'fur pocket' technique both trolls had shown before, she whipped out some kind of rod made out of stone. Regular rock, not the temple's red stone. She practiced some kisses to the air, and then playfully put the rod between her breasts.

" _Hey, boys..._ " she practiced, moving around her bosom with the stone stick still firmly in the middle. "What'cha doing in here? My friend told me he heard something from the temple, and wanted to send me to see if it's someone who can rescue us... I'll tell you what, if you can save us, I'll show you what it's like to have some _fun_ with a troll!"

The elevator stopped just as she gave her tool a kiss, and she frowned as she got a clear look at them. While doing so, her hands dropped to her side, and the object just hit the ground and shattered.

"Ew. Old dudes. I'm not gonna do that. Zeskit's dead anyway, so it's not like they'll believe me. I just knew about Zeff's dumb recolor minions."

Behind the striped _anks was an exceptionally huge room with three things of note. One, what appeared to be a large circle on the ground with some kind of 'switch' of sorts to grip. Two, another carving in the back wall: that one depicting some kind of nude female cyclopse-thing (with her ass very visible) looking in horror as a giant loomed over her. The lower half of the (much) larger figure's body was spider-like, aside from the numbers of spiked tentacles coming from it. The upper half... seemed to be odd and androgynous, looking to be somewhere around the middle age range and with _extremely_ messy, wild hair. Sticking from the figure's chest was six arms - two human-looking, two almost like spider legs with hands on the ends, and two were tentacles. And in each limb was a sword, with some kind of trail or another blazing brightly from each.

Three, the room was really fucking hot. Giant torches were on the wall just underneath the image, but it likely wasn't the torches causing the heat. Damn volcanic region.

"Hey. So, who the hell are you?" Katjus asked the _anks. All of them just glared at her.

"Your death, jerk!" Wank R. said in response. "Wank B.! Prepare to Cannonitize her! Wank P.! Set up a save point, soon!"

It was then that Katjus noticed the white wristwatch with a blue stripe on Wank B.'s right hand, which he toyed around with for a moment. Wank P. also grabbed a television remote, pressed a button twice, and a violet triangle symbol on the floor expanded outwards from around his feet the first press. The second time he pressed it, another triangle expanded in an identical manner, overlapping the first. Shortly after, two other _anks appeared - those violet all around, except one had the number '1' on his shirt, the other a '2.' And both of them had hoods with '12' written on.

"Wait. Wait wait wait." Said Katjus, watching as the watch _slowly_ seemed to be turning in to some sort of cannon around his hand. "Not that we trolls like clothing or anything - we actually don't - but every time we were about to put something - _anything_ on, except for towels _just_ to dry off or bed sheets _just_ to sleep in - these stupid bugs would eat it and it would take, like, five months or something for them to calm the hell down. How come you guys can wear clothes here without being mobbed by those things?"

"Because the Great Zephieye knows how to cast an immunity spell!" Explained Wank G. "Now shut up and let B. blast you!"

The cannon _finally_ finished forming - a real _Mega Man_ ner.

"Now," said Wank B., "as is custom for anyone who meets a portion of us _ank _ills, we will explain in excruciating detail about what we can do before we blast you. I, for example, have the ability to channel in to 'dream blasts,' which lets me fire out tiny pockets of reality that I can slightly bend. But that 'slight' is enough to make you get eaten by a sudden monster I make! And the things I create _stay_ created! I'll tell you, that could serve as a pretty damn good origin story for why the planet's six main Weirdness Magnets are so dang weird!"

"Weird?" Asked Katjus.

 _"And then I explained some stuff you fella's probably already know, what with you being a scientist and everything." In the present, Wank B. said that. "Gravity Falls, Fanservice Island, the Bermuda Triangle, ...to a lesser extent, this 'ghostly desert' spot in the Sahara, a spot near Portland, and the icy cliffs near the very northeast of Russia. The locations of the six temples on Earth, in this timeline anyway. But then immediately after that, I fired:"_

He fired. Oddly, despite the circular opening, his projectile was cubical in shape, and soon enveloped the troll in a matching aura.

"Wank R. over there," B. continued his explanation, "now he has a shield that can deflect nearly _anything._ Over there is Wank P., who can set up two points in space and time, and when he wants to, he can 'reset' himself to go back to that point. The new him will kinda show up as a phantom, so he can be at two places at once, bringing other hims with knowledge of the future. 'Course, it would be cooler and probably more useful if he could rewrite time itself by just going back like an actual save point in real life, but the truth is none of us have that much temporal energy. Just the Keeper of Fire does, with her latent powers over the aspect of Time. Wank O. has this **DAMN HAMMER** that can knock someone in to another dimension! Or, I mean, its own pocket dimension. Otherwise it'd be a bit too similar to Wank Y.'s power, but he's not around here so you don't have to worry. Wank G. can swap the... uh, 'soul powers' of a person - this includes _any_ kind of skill, superpower, or whatnot. The only things that are not switched outright are bodies. And finally, Wank M. is super weak. But he's mainly used to swap by Wank G.'s powers, so it makes sense."

Katjus shrugged. "Okay."

Then she found some blue brain-looking monster thing right behind her. Yes, that same one from "The Inconveniencing," just colored blue.

"Oh no..." she rolled all three of her eyes. "A brain thingy. Aaaaah..."

Without even looking, she held a palm out behind her, which shot teal light at Wank B. and immediately caused him to burst in to those _Mega Man_ -styled bubbles. His weapon ( _slowly_ , as in by the time Katjus finished whooping them - spoilers - it still had not changed back) started the process of changing back in to a watch, with the cube of alternate reality quickly going away.

She then blasted the monster itself.

"HA!" Wank R. cheered. "Nothing from the front can take _me_ down!"

Katjus just appeared behind him. He only registered her as a quick shadow before she effortlessly took of his head with a single chop. Again, he broke in to spheres, dropping his shield behind. And with that shield, the troll was able to negate the effects of O.'s **DAMN HAMMER** , pushing him back just long enough to toss it over to a violet outline of Wank P. with the number '2' written on his shirt. The shield tore him in half, and he exploded. That caused the other Wank P.s to look at each other.

"Well _shoot._ " Said the unmarked, non-solidly colored one. "Now I know how I'm gonna die."

The '1' Wank O. shrugged, as the '1' faded from his chest. "I already saw it coming, because I _was_ you in the past. I'll tell 'ya, I shuddered at going back even when I knew I still had one more time zip."

"Well then, should we go back... together? I mean, you already know how this conversation is gonna end."

"Buddy..." The completely-colored one looked down and exhaled from his nose. " _You're me,_ and you don't even _have_ to be from the future to know that you _do_ know how this conversation is gonna end. Now, I know the afterlife is scary - God knows, considering what Yank has to say about it - but think of it as us facing it together."

They both gave a handshake (Hankshake? I actually wrote it like that at first, it was a typo, but I couldn't help at how amusing that was), keeping their hands that way.

"Now, on three." Said the marked one. "Remember, I'll face death before you. One... two... three!"

Both of them pressed their button on the remote, and zipped backwards. The purple markings on the ground disappeared after that. Katjus cartwheeled to the purple remote, went behind the elevator doors, and came back out, looking at the shocked final three of the group.

"Well, I'll be!" Shouted Wank O. "Well, this **DAMN HAMMER** oughta put an end to your nonsense!"

A violet-tinted Katjus just walked up to him and stabbed him from behind with the shield. Sticking a tongue out, she winked at the non-colored one, who just clicked a button and vanished. The colored one turned back to her original hue and lost the number.

"Cool but needlessly complicated time travel he has, there." Said Katjus. "I knew my speed would pay off, so that you wouldn't see my future self."

Wank G. lept to the air and took out two... markers? Now these objects were _really_ getting random. He held them up, shooting green and white electricity at Katjus and Wank M.

"I'm gonna make you weak!" Said G.

"You know what's not based on personal power?" Asked Katjus. G. switched his hands around, also pulling out colorful trails - hers teal, his maroon - that swapped bodies. Katjus cringed as her now-weaker self felt just how brittle Wank M.'s bones were. "Bombs. Yeah, we've got some kind of technology here. You know Zeskit and I - mostly 'I' - made this stupididly complicated security system that keeps someone in a cave chamber for three days? It was to filter out toxic gas and even lava leaks and stuff on the ground that we _could_ just crawl around, but I think we miscalculated and now it just traps people. And it's set up to flip in a funny way to try keeping it... on the ground? Zeskit managed to see Stan and Darlene get trapped before he died. It was funny. But anyway, you know what else I had, and what that troll that _was_ my future self before becoming my _my_ self did before stabbing your orange dude? Three word hint: Place. A. Bomb."

She did that fur-ass patch thingy _again,_ that time taking out a remote and flipped a switch.

Boom, an explosion happened to go off right by Wank G.

 _"That was not just me being stupid!" Wank G. explained. "Her bombs have some kind of 'instinct draw' that makes people subconciously want to go there! So when I dodged out after she killed Wank O. Will, I subconciously tried to jump closer to it!"_

 _"Uh huh..." replied Darlene. "Yeah, because there aren't enough confusing rules and powers out of nowhere. So, how did she finish off the last guy? And what did he drop?"_

 _"Oh. Sorry, but... Wank M. was super weak, remember? With me gone, my effects were reversed. All that happened was..."_

"Well... well... shoot!" Said Wank M. "Thank goodness I have _my_ object! It's this flower that can-"

Katjus made him burst with just one punch. The flower was simple, with maroon petals and one stem that matched it.

"I don't know what this does." Katjus explained.

 _"...To be honest, I don't either." Explained Wank M. "I was just hoping that I wouldn't have to finish that sentence. For a reason_ other _than her one-punching me to death. That flower's a complicated one, lemme tell ya. There are way too many damn rules about it. It's not simple, like the_ _ **DAMN HAMMER**_ _is."_

* * *

Humming, Katjus made her way to the top with all the dropped tools in hand, watching as the blue and white cannon _finally_ turned back in to a watch.

Then she felt a hoof to the back of her head.

"I _knew_ constantly tapping myself in the face would send us somewhere good!" That was Wendy's voice, not that Katjus knew who that was. "Those are the last _ank things! And you were that evil person who tried to attack me the last time I came here!"

"What?" Rubbing her head, the troll turned around to spot a nude Wendy Corduroy, riding atop Celestabellebethabelle. Riding on the same unicorn immediately behind her was an also-nude Fiddleford Hadron McGucket.

"Alright, I've been looking for the other _anks for an hour now!" Wendy exposited. "And I finally assembled a team for going to this crazy naked island! So, is your plan to take over the world the same as the Great Zephieye's, or something different? I think those are the last of the artifact thingies..."

"Oh yes, I'm gettin' _strong_ readings from them!" Said McGucket.

"Meee tooooo!" The unicorn telephatically, swaying her head back and forth as her front hooves fluttered a little in the air.

Wendy ended up verbally striking her back down. "Stop posing. You told me unicorns can't do that."

"I know..." the equine's mood immediately dropped. "I just wanted to be left in..."

"So," Wendy explained over to Katjus, "sorry for bopping you on the head based on that bad judgement. You didn't happen to see my _past_ self or anything, did you? I'm still new to this time travel crap. But seriously, you strike me as evil, what with what you had to say about the other Stan. I'm... gonna ask _politely,_ right now, for the objects. And if you reply _politely,_ then I'll let you keep them. Now, have you seen guys who look like this man but with weird striped white hair colors?"

She held a photo of Hank Hill that was left on McGucket's groin. Katjus just glared at her.

"Go screw yourself! These are mine for the taking, and I'm gonna get Zeskit's seven living batteries back so that _I_ can make my own mega-city to rule over other people!"

"Yep, I knew it. Mc. G!"

Fiddleford took a stasis laser out from his beard - an act that got Katjus's eyes to widen, even after he fired it at her. The weapon made her drop everything, and Wendy hopped off, casually picking the items up. Blue cannon, check. Red shield, check. Purple remote, check. Orange **DAMN HAMMER**... huh, missing. Green markers, check. When getting to M.'s flower, she tilted her head curiously, looking at it for a while. She eventually stopped caring and shrugged, but kept the item in her hand. She looked back at the troll.

"I warned you! Now, bye!"

"Wait a minute! I know that gun!" Katjus _would_ have pointed at it had she been able to move her arms. "Zeskit stole it and showed it to me! Argh, you're a friend of that 'Four' guy, aren't you?! I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you!"

"Yeah, whatever." Said Wendy, taking Wank Y.'s key, putting it in the palm of her hand, and balling up that hand. "Now, let's head back."

Katjus was not unfrozen until Wendy opened another portal leading out, which the trio soon ran off to.

For a few moments after that, the other troll remained in stunned silence until _another_ yellow and white portal tore itself open. That time, Wendy dropped by herself, and in her normal outfit. She looked around at the temple's insides and gasped.

"Oh no! Oh no... oh no... oh no... why does that stupid key keep taking me to one of these freaky dungeons?!" She quickly began removing her clothes. Wendy ripped her pants off just in time for an ember to fall from one of the temple's torches, creating a small trail of smoke that blocked her underpant-less naughty bits. Her boots and socks went without much protest, but one she got to her tops, her bra happened to land on Katjus's head, getting an _extremely_ offended reaction out of her and more emotion than she showed with fighting any of the _anks at the bottom of the temple.

"Argh, I'm leaving!" Wendy was about to place the key back in her hand, but then she blushed upon noticing Katjus. "Uh... hi there! Sorry about that. You're naked too so you probably don't know, but there's these bugs that eat clothing. I was thinking of asking this science dude I live by to help with-"

"YOU!" Katjus pointed a finger at her. "ARGH, I HATE YOU! ANY FRIEND OF FORD IS AN ENEMY OF MINE! I WILL HAVE MY _CITY,_ YOU AWFUL JERK!"

"Uh... I would love to get answers for that, but I gotta go. I'm just happy I didn't take Dipper's hat." She lightly tapped her fist against her own chin, causing another portal to show up. Once she stepped through, her clothing flashed yellow. FYI, that's an indicator that they are 'desynched' compared to her when it comes to punch activation. Otherwise, the next punch would have sent her clothes going to the different point in spacetime, and how embarassing would this story be with a naked character in it? (Oh, and yes, she still has a 'leftover punch' from Wank Y. - whether it counts as 'left over' or not depends on the user, so she won't get zipped back to the past Green Temple as we saw in the Intermission until Wank Y. specifically punches her again.)

Katjus's eye continued to twitch, even as the Cloth Moths began swarming in and started consuming on the fallen articles of clothing.

* * *

 _"And that leads up to the moment your brother pulled out those tabs... the tabs of my mask." Yank explained._

Stan was KO'd right along with Ford and Darlene after the bullet pierced him. However, the mask began to glow brightly - fifteen entities came out in yellow light, each of them revealing to be an _ank _ill.

Kank was the only one that looked confused.

"Wait a minute, what the hell is going on-" he asked.

Pyronica took a step back, looking over at her Guide. (Anti-Guide?)

"...Yo! What's this?"

The Anti-Sage just waved a hand in dismissal. **"Oh, do not worry about them. They are noth-"**

And then Pyronica found herself getting hit on the cheek by the **DAMN HAMMER** , a white hammer with an orange stripe going through it. And then she flashed orange, appearing to be 'sucked in to' the **DAMN HAMMER** itself before being shot out in different sparks. The chain holding the Sage-Guides nearly fell to the floor, before the Anti-Sage caught it.

 **"You... you..."** she said, **"BLASTED HER TO ZHE PARALLEL WORLD!"**

 _"'The' Parallel World?" Asked the present-Ford. "There's an infinite number of them. Unless she was referring to..."_

 _"Yeah, she's referring to that." Wank O. explained. "That's how the_ _ **DAMN HAMMER**_ _works."_

 _"Do you always have to shout that?"_

 _"No."_

 _Darlene butted in with: "Guys, wait, I'm out of the loop! What's the Parallel World? How is it any different from the portal's worlds?"_

 _"Well, it's tied to the world it's used in. But everything is all... parallel-y. Every single universe ever has its own 'Parallel World' like this. It's complicated."_

"Yeah, well, what are you gonna do about it?" Wank O. Will asked casually, as though he was not holding a giant hammer near her. Which he was. "I mean, you're like a ghost!"

Then Kank Kill zipped in between them.

"Well, _I_ can do something about that! As a full supporter of the Great Zephieye, I do not take kindly to whatever it is you all are doing! What, let me guess, you're sad now that you were dead and now you wanna work for the Keepers?"

"...Well, yeah." Said Yank. "You really do understand us!"

Kank looked like he was about to growl.

" _Pathetic._ "

That was the sole 'warning' he 'gave' before he thrust a fist charged with black lightning towards the ground, causing the entire temple to shake.

 **"Vhat zhe** _ **frick**_ **are you doing?"** 'Frick' wasn't an accent thing. The Anti-Sage just doesn't swear.

And the Anti-Sage ended up getting hit with a huge burst of water shortly after saying that.

In fact, it was almost as though Kank's punch swapped water and air. The sea-covered sections he hit had their water be scattered as though each droplet lived in fear of the mighty Black Punch (I just came up with that name just now. Well, technically, the first time on writing, since I come back and look over the full chapter before publishing), while the spots that were occupied by air were hit with the jets caused by the stone shielding the temple from the rest of the ocean to burst. The Anti-Sage soon vanished in the depths, taking the four captured Guides with her. Meanwhile, Kank himself just shot a glare at the rest of his former team as black shined over his glasses. A particularly large splash of bubbles from a column of water landing near Kank obscured him from view, and he himself disappeared.

Oh, and someone else briefly entered the picture. A female mermaid - Mermando's mother. Remember her? From that, like, one photograph? Well, she wears a seashell bra, and by the standards of a show that's kid friendly that's pretty fucking hot. Anyway, she looked around the blue stone with as much confusion as someone who skipped the Intermission would have right about now.

"Wh-where... what is this?" She asked, her top also slipping off from the chaotic water rushing around. "We should have never come here for vacation! CURSE YOU, FLORIDA!"

All of the present _anks nodded.

"Yeah," said Yank, "I hate Florida. Now can ya please put your top back on? It's bad enough that destiny itself keeps findin' ways to keep our Keepers naked for more than four months. We don't need your nudity too."

Before that conversation could be carried further, however, the entire building practically collapsed in on itself, taking the entire gang down. With the magic of his savestate remove, Wank P. was able to nab both Ford and Darlene, but Stan disappeared in to the seas below.

Rank managed to grab a tiny part of the black 'vines,' and with raw red energy, he blasted a wave that spread throughout most of the area of the temple's upper portion. That ended up being sent even all the way to Stan's veiny-prisons, and all three of the wrapping black tendrils started their process of shriveling up.

* * *

"...So we swam and swam and swam until we found another dry part." Gank finished the explanation. "And then we just found a map and started leading you two to the Blue Sage-Guide. As for Stan, well... we don't know where he is. And since the mask is gone and Wendy _still_ has almost all our equipment, we can't find her either."

* * *

Stan was _surprisingly_ cheery for a naked man not normally naked that just got separated from his brother ( _yet again_ ) in the middle of a completely unfamiliar blue dungeon that's housed sea water for roughly... hundreds of years.

(World building: the people who came and went until recently, the 'hidden worshippers,' were the ones regulating the water. Keeping the temple from being completely flooded after it sank deep in the ocean's depths, and also keeping it from getting too salty.)

"Whelp! This sure is terrible!" He said. "I'm all alone now, and my Guide was kidnapped! But hey, I just have the slightest feeling that Ford is out there-"

 **"LOOK AT YOU BEING DISGUSTING, FLAUNTING YOUR WHITE MALE PRIVILEGE!"**

I'm going to ask you to guess who said that. Even if the bold and capslock were removed, who else in this story talks like that? No, not Manly Dan from _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ , he doesn't count as that's not THIS story. No matter how intentionally half-assed this fan fic is, it's still not _SBIG_ installment, so I'm just making my own characters to act as social straw opponents rather than mucking up canon's.

"Warhorse!" Stan cried, pointing to the red centaur. "So, you've finally decided to be a man and show up face-to-face instead of hiding out for the full three hours!"

 **"'BE A MAN?' okay, idgaf y u keep having to mention this stuff, about gender? But its wrong okay? So just... Just? Just! Just. Stop. Stop? It's gross tho and disgusting? Because it is? But it is tho?"**

"...Huh?"

 **"STOP. STOP TALKING ABOUT MASCULINITY LIKE IT IS THE IDEAL THING TO STRIVE FOR! BY USING 'BE A MAN' AS A COMPLIMENT, YOU ARE REINFORCING THE MALE SUPERIORITY TO SOCIETY! EVERY TIME SOMEONE SAYS 'BE A MAN' AS IF THAT IS A GOOD THING, FIVE TRANSWOMEN GET RAPED! IT'S BEEN STATISTICALLY PROVEN! I saw it on Reddit."**

"Wow. You are a _million_ times worse than the Weapons Squad Captain. Her words might need a dictionary to read, but at least she uses _real_ words. And Ford could translate that. He might _kill you_ for what you're doing to grammar there. Anyway, all I'm translating that as is: 'hey, I'm evil, I want to fight good.' I wouldn't call myself _good_ good, like an _angel_ or anything, but you're definitely a devil, and _I hate devils._ I finished off summer punching one of them in the face. I mean, that was in a dream of some kind. But I still technically punched him in the face!"

 **"'DEMON' IS A SLUR! YOU HAVE TO SAY IT WITH AN ASTERISK REPLACING ONE WORD! BECAUSE THAT WILL MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE!"**

"No- he called himself that! A 'Dream demon,' Bill Ciph-"

 **"YOU NEED TO HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO SAY THAT WORD! YOU ARE NOT ONE OF THEM! SO DO NOT USE THAT SLUR! KILL YOURSELF! So that I don't have to? Because I hate having to get my hands dirty?"**

Stan managed to do that thing where his face was in such that right angle that Warhorse saw his eyes shaded over. Grinning, he chuckled.

"Kill myself? _Kill myself?_ Listen, Warhorse. I'm alive. And I may be old, but I feel more alive than ever right now. You wanna know why?"

 **"BECAUSE YOU ARE A CISGENDER, HETEROSEXUAL, WHITE MALE? WITH A FORCED MEXICAN AND TEENAGE GIRL SLAVE TO YOUR WORK, NO LESS?"**

"What? No, I was gonna break in to song about family- eh, I'm gonna do it anyway. You see:

" _I have..._

" _The courage of the soul of,_ " He held his Keeper Blade to his side, letting the winds blow around the temple's seawater.

" _My nephew and his love..._ " He looked dead in the eyes of his opponent.

 **"WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE? NO. I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR HEARING MY ENEMIES BREAK IN TO SONG! I AM THE PERSONIFICATION OF WAR, DAMMIT! And a supporter of social justice!"**

Warhorse summoned six glowing, red-orange spheres around himself, which quickly errupted in to flames around them.

 **"STOP SINGING YOU DISGUSTING PRIVILEGED TRASH!"**

"Never! Because...

" _Because I have me (me!),_ "

He lept out of the way of Warhorse's tossed fireballs, using extra wind from his Blade to propel him out of the way. Predictably, the temple took some damage from that, as chunks of the 'mystic(?)' blue stone crumbled around them. Smirking, Stan gave a glance to those ruins.

" _Him (him!), my inner tough guyyyy...!_ "

Warhorse just charged straight on, and got a kick-flip to the face as a result. He placed a hand on the spot of his chin that was hit. It... surprisingly hurt-

 _There were tiny chips of the blue stone on the injured part ah shit._

" _And now for me and her (her!), my neise (neise!), with the heart's power that's whyyy!_ "

 **"YOUR SONG DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE! IS THIS RUSE... A DISTRACTION?!"**

Stan winked at him, grabbing as much of the stone as he could. "You learn fast, don't you? If there's one thing I knew about this one horse guy, it was that he _HATED_ musicals. That weren't about cowboys."

 **"THAT IS NOT COMPLETELY ACCURATE! BUT I HATE THIS DISTRACTION BULLSHI-"**

With his sword being used to cause an extra-high windy jump, Stan flew over Warhorse with smaller strands of the breeze picking up dust trails of temple shrapnel. Smirking, he lined the edge of his Blade with the aquatic dust, and slashed. The bladed ended up having a sort of 'thin film' of the stone dust, kinda like that one part of the second _Futurama_ movie where Bender was fighting against an electromatter being that can only be harmed by other electromatter by sticking sheets of it to his sword.

 **"DAMMIT!"** Warhorse cried, as the Blade successfully cut through him. **"I WAS HOPING THAT NOBODY GUESSED THAT WE SHARED THE BOUNDARY GUARDIANS' WEAKNESS TO THE TEMPLE STONE! ARGH! AAAAARGH...!"**

Landing on the ground on the other side of him, Stan smirked.

"Well Big Red, any last words?"

 **"I WISH UPON YOU... VIOLENCE!"** He cried, before exploding in to red mist much like Faminehorse's yellow and Pestilencehorse's green.

 _Numbing, overwhelming pain shoots through every nerve in your body, all centered on the mind._

And then Stan felt said pain all around him, as though a lightning bolt hit him. The other five Keepers felt that too, all of which flinched. As the 'mind' part implied, the pain was punctuated with a colossal fucking headache.

Oh well. Stan found himself able to walk it off, and he continued down a wider room that sloped downward-

"Hey, wait a minute." That sounded like that Kank guy. And he was right around the corner... "I think I can sense your brother. Ya' see, in addition to having that mask that summons the rest of us, I can also kinda sense spirits around and all that hippie mumbo-jumbo."

Bracing himself, Stan curved around, using the wind of his sword to-

Kank apparently dyed his hair a bright yellow blonde, had thirteen clones, and they held up Darlene and Ford as they both dealt with their Keeper-headaches from Warhorse's death. Specifically since I feel like elaborating, Ford was being kept up by the blue one, while Darlene was kept from throwing up by the orange one. Until the migranes faded.

"Stan, no, wait! These men are good!" Ford explained before any more slashes were made.

Stan just paused there. "Wait... really?"

"Yes! Wendy killed them all-"

"Actually, some of her friends helped with that." Mank said, folding his arms.

"And most of us with stripes were killed by this naked teal lady..." Wank M. looked up to the ceiling for a moment. "...Her name was 'Katjus' or somethin'?"

"ARGH, Katjus!" Ford shook his fist as he finally began to step down. "Sorry. But she... she kind of _shoved_ Darlene and I in to the hex-ship while you were still getting your Blade."

"Right. Hey, speaking of Blades... did you?"

"Oh, yeah!" The replier was Darlene, who got off of Oank and took her own sword out from her inventory. "It, uh, can control spirits or something like that! It's pretty cool. So, yours grows trees, right?"

Stan kind of, slightly, a _little_ bit, blushed. "...Actually, I was asking Ford. My memory of when Pyronica attacked us was a little fuzzy, but I think I remember you talking about having your blade."

Ford sighed. "No, but the Anks say-"

"It's _anks." Yank elaborated.

"...I'm sorry, I can't tell the difference."

"That's right. You don't speak in Vidya Game Speech like we do. Nevermind. You'll... 'get it,' so to speak."

"...Right. Well, the _anks say that they can sense the soul of the Blue Sage-Guide. We're close! It's gotten to the point where even _I_ can sense it!"

Darlene and Stan both just looked at him.

"...Really?" Asked the former. "Because I couldn't feel a thing right next to mine."

"Me neither." The latter confirmed.

"Well." Ford blinked. "I guess Keepers can't 'sense' their Guides from-"

He recognized the sort of hall they were in at that point. Just like the ones leading to the Red and Yellow Guides. (And Green and Orange, but Ford wasn't around for those.) The group could even make out the glow of the orb trapping him, but faintly.

"This is it." Stan took a deep breath in. "All we need to do is charge over there, and we can have _one_ Guide to help us again. Easy, right?"

* * *

Actually, that part was. Ford already had his hand on the orb, watching as cracks ran across that one as well.

Shatter, room fill with light, the usual works.

This particular Guide had somewhat short hair - okay, yes, he was also blue much as Red was red, Yellow was yellow, and so on. His other main noteworthy features were his skinny and tall-ish build, and the bunch of water that was constantly reshaping itself and the like acting as his crotch obscuration. Oh yeah, and he gave the biggest fucking smug smirk ever when freed.

"Greetings inferior lifeforms!" He told to the three Keepers. (The _anks were still there, but a bit farther down the line - some of them even shuddered for some reason.) Ford facepalmed.

"I'm not sure if I like this guy already..." he said, also trying to ignore the way his ass was glowing blue. Yeah, Ford's Smurf butt. Crazy shit this fan fiction keeps coming up with, right?

"I am just going to cut to the chase, as Red had informed me about your time limit and other predicaments. I understand that contact with the other Guides except Purple has ceased. And that you have abooooout... ah, twenty minutes before Deathhorse's final part of his project to open up the dimensional breach is complete. Now, as to finding the other Guides... I believe the culprit might be the Anti-"

 **"I alveady confessed my true goals to them, dumbass."**

His smirk disappeared, being replaced with a furious look as he whipped around and saw the Anti-Sage, holding the other four Guides in her chain. Yellow waved at him, which again smothered Orange's face further in her bosom.

"Hi Blue!" She said. "I would hug you right now, but... you know, I'm stuck right now."

"Yes, I see..." The Blue Sage-Guide put a hand on his chin. "Yes, I still need to figure out-"

Ford went through great lengths to resist waving his arms around as he shouted: "Sword, please!"

Blue blinked. "Oh. Right, then:"

Mist began to swirl and form a space in front of him as he focused. As larger and larger water droplets gathered around, the Anti-Sage rolled her eyes.

 **"Yeah, no. Sorry Fort, you vill not get zis Blade. Not now, not ever."**

She formed another gun with her hand, seemingly completely unaware of how stupid it kinda looked by having a hand-gun act as a literal gun. Regardless, as the water clumps got closer and closer together and were joined by some ice bits, she fired, bullet zig-zagging around until it hit the Blue Sage-Guide in the chest as well.

Even as the chains spawned around him, the sword still formed - the water grouped together in to ice, and that icey shell burst out to reveal blue sword, glowing. Ford wasted no time grabbing it, and once he did, water began shooting out. Fresh water, by the way. Thankfully not that seawater.

 **YOU GOT THE WATER KEEPER'S BLADE!**

 **A "legendary" (that is a bit of an inaccurate term...) weapon that was hidden within the cracks of Earth. Swing it like a lightsaber from** _ **Star Wars**_ **, encasing ice within all opposing forces and sending them a hit of pure water! Powered by none other than SCIENCE, and more specifically the magical compound of C3H8.**

"So... even our new Guide just got captured!" Darlene said. "What are we gonna do?"

"Well, _we_ can handle this as twins." Said Stan. "I mean, this is nothing compared to Bill, right?"

While that question was aimed at Ford, the Red Sage-Guide looked around a bit in thought.

"Well..." she began.

"Yes, I think we have this..." Ford gave his sword a good stare, however.

 **"Bah."** the Anti-Sage rolled her eyes. **"You bore me. Good-** _ **BYE!**_ **"**

The 'bullet' zig-zagged around, except this time, Ford and Darlene both lept off in blurs. Stan, who looked like he was about to make a jump himself, just stood there in confusion. "Wait... what?" He asked.

Even the Anti-Sage froze up a little as the pair appeared behind her, with roaring waters propelling Ford, while Darlene had the guiding hand of lightning and souls... somehow. 'Ghostly' arms just kind of spawned to push her there.

"Okay." Darlene explained. "When I got my sword, Soos and I worked together to make something that could kill Faminehorse. But- we couldn't kill him on our own. We should try combining our stuff too!"

"What do water and souls even make?" Ford asked.

"That sounds like something I want to be surprised by!"

The Anti-Sage spun around, barely evading the orange and blue slashes aimed at her.

"Okay, she's running away from your moves, that means these swords can hurt her, right?" Stan asked.

 **"...Oh shoot."** The Anti-Sage just kinda looked at him as she dodged more swings from the two. **"You vhere not supposed to figure zhat out."**

"Well I did, and-"

...The Anti-Sage just kinda ran so that her chain went right in to his Blade. Anti-climactically, the former object just broke. The Black Not-Quite-Guide gasped in horror as the bindings began to fell, and Red in particular soon shook herself - and the others - free.

"Yes!" Cheered the buxom crimson Guide.

In a flash of orange and white light, Pyronica _had_ somehow returned from the wrath of the **DAMN HAMMER** , except she looked dazed and stumbled around the room a bit.

 **"Ah, finally. You're back."** Her Guide flatly stated. **"Just vhen thinks vere startink to get boring."**

"Of course I'm back! That place was confusing! It was just like this place, but everything was orange and looked awful!"

"No, you got the Parallel World wrong." Wank O. began. Oh, and by the way, yes, I'll show you what that Parallel World looks like. The next chapter will also finally elaborate on the 'temple activation' process that was intentionally being left vague so I have more time to procrastinate describing it. "Ya' see, if you took the time to go out and look at the sky-"

Then Kank lept in.

"Alright, I've finally found you, that's enough. Where's Deathhorse? By siding with the riser of the Black Sun, that jackass is betraying me. Dang it."

 **"RIGHT HERE,"** The mighty centaur shouted, **"YOU... YOU... who are you?"**

Deathhorse actually just kind of trotted in. Pyronica facepalmed.

"Forget it! Ford, you already got that blue thingy, now I can have the power of luck on my side!"

"...Wait, how does that work?" He asked, only to get no answer:

"I'm out of here." Pyronica kept her head in her hand. "Deathhorse, finish them off. I think I know how luck works; you'll win, right?"

Deathhorse roared, for some reason lifting his front legs in the air and waving them around patternlessly. **"YOU INSULT ME. I WILL WIN** _ **WITHOUT**_ **LUCK!"**

"Later, losers."

She and the Anti-Sage both once again turned around and slapped their rears, then Pyronica zipped away with her usual teleportation, also zipping her Guide with her.

The Keepers and the five chromatic Guides all whipped around to look at the fourth and final Skeltaur.

 **"SO. FIFTEEN MINUTES LEFT. ARE YOU THREE BADASS ENOUGH TO KILL DEATH? I DON'T THINK SO. I MEAN, ALL THREE OF YOU ARE PRETTY DAMN OLD! Where are those sexy twenty-somethings at? Now that Warhorse isn't around to lecture me about** _ **'mis-aw-gin-eeee,'**_ **I can talk about all the tits and that Soos guy's ass all I want!"**

Shit, would fifteen minutes be a good amount of time? I think they said twenty earlier, but I have no idea if that could reasonably be five minutes between now and then. I only mainly picked around twenty minutes as a kinda half-assed nod to the way that _Gravity Falls_ is a half-hour show, and you know, remove the commercial breaks and it's about 22-23 minutes.

Well, anyway. Let's finish this chapter already. Deathhorse battle, GO! (And Kank.)

Deathhorse immediately fired a black laser bigger than even his own mighty body over in Stan's direction, which almost completely engulfed him.

Ford and Darlene both gasped for a moment, before Stan let out an "I'm fine!" from behind the blast.

The truth was, his Blade managed to set up a large net of branches that blocked the attack - barely. The winds that he created to push the beam back seemed to have done jack squat, and his own wood was breaking under the laser's force.

"...But I won't be fine for long! HELP!"

Darlene was already in full spider form, picking Ford up on her back.

"Okay, right, combine our element-stuffs." She repeated. "Do you know how your Blade works? I kind of figured out how to use mine as soon as-" and then she stopped, as talking is not a free action and time passes during that, and by that time she managed to get within the perfect angle to strike at Deathhorse. From there, both Keepers made an attempt to slice at him, causing him to hop back and cease fire.

Darlene continued. "-I got it. And I'm not even that much of a sword fighter! Well, I'm not a sword fighter at _all._ Really."

"Yeah, I think so. And I **hate** using anything remotely similar to swords." Ford explained.

 **"YOU KEEPERS CAN GO TRUCK YOURSELVES."** Said Deathhorse. **"I'm sorry, I don't swear. It's part of my religion."**

That served as a grim reminder of the undeniable fact that Deathhorse was about to do some serious ( _metaphorical_ ) utter assfucking right about now.

Anyway, Deathhorse materialized a colossal scythe from out of fucking nowhere, he just made some black mist and BOOM, it was in his hands. No matter how much Darlene or the twins tried to slash him and from whatever angle, he was able to reply by flipping his scythe around all over the place and block each attack.

 **"THIS IS NOTHING! EVEN FROM THREE FRONTS, I-"**

"Okay, I have had enough with these jerks!" Darlene belted. "I've done this before with Soos! Ford! Get your Blade ready!"

More spiritual energy spiraled around her - cyan wisps and the occasional face blared from near her, almost forming a small conal shell that Deathhorse seemingly had some difficulty getting in to. Looking at that, Stan nodded, and started up his own mini-tornado with his Blade.

Then Ford just kind of pointed his own sword above and watched as water droplets around him began to rush upwards. The sword itself also generated its own water bursts - in fact, it generated more than it commanded.

Stan frowned when the ectoenergy flew right over him, finding a good place in Ford's mini-globs of water. Without any noteworthy influence by the wind (but for obvious reasons that part is difficult to judge) or plant, the two other 'elements' quickly blended in to... uh...

What resembled a giant skeleton-thing made of ice. With some ghostly glow.

 **"...Oh truck."** Said Deathhorse.

That thing brought out its _own_ scythe, immediately cutting Deathhorse in half. Vertically. Despite that, once the ice-skeleton vanished, Deathhorse still seemed to be able to move around, and he pressed his hands in a failed attempt to push himself back together.

 **"GARGH! KEEPER OF WIND! CURSE YOU** _ **AAAAND**_ **YOUR MINIONS!"**

That was is a _Wonderful 101_ reference.

"What, me?" Stan pointed at himself. "Uh... I didn't really _do_ anything."

"Yeah," Ford added, "and I'm not sure exactly what _that thing_ we did even _was._ I mean, Darlene stuck her sword up and I just rolled with-"

 **"I WISH UPON YOU... NOT LIVING ANYMORE! Wait, what's that blinking light?"**

And, in a black blast, Deathhorse too exploded, getting rid of the time limit.

 _ **Impending doom approaches!**_

That had no direct corresponding 'feeling.' Just... dread all-around. A 'bad shit is going to happen' vibe.

Three quick head-turns confirmed that the 'blinking light' was actually the flashing of Kank Kill's energy, as he had since started fighting with the other _anks on the side.

In spite of Kank being the only one of them with remaining tools of sort or outstanding powers (well, Wank O.'s **DAMN HAMMER** aside), he was still soon just kinda outnumbered and had him bound in their arms.

"Let me _go,_ dang it!" He tried to shake. The others pinned him down. Not all fourteen, of course. That seemed like more trouble than it would be worth, even for keeping down _Kank._

"NO!" Yank belted back. As though he was not holding a black-haired near-lookalike of him, he turned his way to Stan.

"Okay, we've got him. Now, if that Blue Sage-Guide could activate this temple..."

 _Everyone,_ including Kank, looked at aformentioned ghostly man. Who blinked.

"Oh... OH!" Blue replied. "Dear, right. Anyway, I guess I should do my part. It's just that your fights were so interesting! I mean, all of those skills..."

Shrugging, he disappeared through the floor. Green sighed.

"Alright, then." He said. "So... if I understand things right, Red and Yellow need to get back to their Keepers. Then again, you guys should probably all reunite at the Purple Temple."

Oank shivered a bit, looking at the Guide.

"Wait a minute!" He said. "You're... you're like _me!_ How is that...?"

Green rolled his eyes. "Actually, I think I have the answer to that! You see, we kinda left psychic influences on mankind while we were prisoned. A-accidentally! And, one thing I probably influenced was media... not Hank Hill from _King of the Hill_ , that's just a bad coincidence. But there was this moble game made in Hank's image... somehow, FOX greenlit the pitched concept. And so, that's how the game Zephieye found you guys came in to existence!"

"... **Huh.** " Gank replied flatly.

* * *

Stan sighed in relaxation as he walked through the hex-ship, the five Sage-Guides trailing close behind him (actually, Blue teleported in just slightly late and dashed to fly after them - he was finishing up the Blue Temple's "activation"). Ford and Darlene, farther away.

"So, Soos and his friends are enjoying themselves over at the last temple?" He asked, looking around and completely confirming that the ship he just teleported to was, in fact, in Portland.

His words went unheard by Darlene and Ford.

"...And you have a better understanding of the term 'spirit' according to how the Keeper rules work?" The latter asked, making sure to walk parallel to her.

Darlene nodded. "Didn't you hear the Guides? I'll need that... Darkness Keeper Blade or something to _single out_ the souls I need to talk to."

"This is what Melody should be working towards! If you combined Darkness with Soul... you could have-"

"I know already." Darlene looked at the five spirits around Stan. "You know they explained to me just as they explained to you."

Ford's eyes glanced off to the side. "Er... yeahhhhh... sorry, I am used to handling exposition by myself. I believe just last month I was explaining to Soos something he knew before I did. And that was _before_ we all had these."

He gently moved his Blade up - causing some water to rise up and accidentally splash Stan on the back.

Stan froze for a moment, and Yellow, Orange, and Blue could not help themselves to giggle.

"It was an accident!" Darlene said sheepishly when he turned around. "A premature splashulation-"

"I know, that exact same thing happened with me when I got my Blade!"

That got Ford to stop his slight blushing. "Wait... with who? You were alone when you found your Blade."

"It happened with my Guide." And Green nodded to support.

"Well," Ford then took his eyes to the orange weapon, "at least you have an interesting Blade ability. I _suppose_ this could free the world's water problems, but when it comes to making breakthroughs in the spiritual realm, I don't understand what's so great about-"

"EX-CUSE ME." Blue boomed. "But that is perhaps the _BEST_ of the Blades out there! _Infuriatingly_ overpowered, I might add!"

That got Darlene and the twins to shake a bit. Even Orange gulped, but soon regained his composure as though nothing happened.

"I can explain!" The Red Guide floated right behind Blue - she looked at him as he started bearing teeth, but did not actually restrain him. She did, however, look seconds away from that. "You see, we have the powers over both physical objects and abstractions. And the abstraction tied to water is fortune itself!"

Ford just gave his Blade a good stare. "...That makes zero sense. I have factually proven that luck can only ever be manipulated outright by pink objects, cow sweat, or rabbit hair. Those were some awful tests, believe me. Now, curses are different..."

"He is _so lucky_ he reminds me of _Futurama_..." Blue said, almost making a move forward.

"Hey, we can kick each-other's asses over the tiniest things later!" Orange cried. "But now, I'm picking up some weird stuff surrounding the Purple Temple! According to Red here, our time expert, it happened right when we were all kidnapped by Black."

The Red Guide nodded. "Yes, I should have probably explained our abstractions a while ago... anyway, I represent both fire and time. Orange represents lightning and heart/soul - we just used 'soul' as his identifier as it means more to him, or something. Yellow represents literal electromagnetic light and 'mind,' counting both mental energy and life energy. Green represents reality itself in a dimensional sense, along with wind and plants. Blue, as explained, covers, water, ice, and also luck. And Purple represents earth, blood, and its main abstractions are space and 'body.' So, Purple, Yellow, and Orange make a body, mind, and soul trio."

"Wait, why is Darlene's Guide the lightning one? Shouldn't that be .GIFfany's?"

"...I already explained that our selection process is based on butts, and not superpowers. Otherwise, .GIFfany's squad captains would be the ones to have us. Or those Gnome Gemulets."

"Okay, but that just sounds so _needlessly confusing._ "

"We were just born that way." Green shrugged. "We're not the ones who came up with these powers."

Yellow had actually since been along farther in the ship, looking through something. She managed to grab the attention of everyone with just the following sentences:

"Did you notice something? I have not heard of the .GIFfanys since we got here. And their life readings... there's only one person here. Even the generator is gone. But I _am_ sensing a lot of... 'not alive' 'organisms' around here."

That caused the team to run. Except for the _anks, as they remained behind, holding Kank.

"Wait a minute!" Said Bank. "...What the hell do _we_ do? We can't keep up with tha-"

Kank broke out, and lept away.

"Dang it!"

* * *

Oh _dear_ that was some bad shit at the edge of the six-way ship fusion.

Legions of... some flying _things_ spun around the entrance to the Purple Temple, in a massive dome that went well past the entire ship and extended outward. In fact, whatever they were, there were so many of them and they were so far out that even several kilometers away in all directions, they seemed to form a cloud of... them.

Getting a closer look, the beings were the same color as the Lightning Cult robes: that pale aqua. They were somewhat shaped like cones facing downward, with rounded metallic heads each holding a single compound 'eye' of cameras. Individually, they would have made a fluttering sound. But together, they all sounded like a whirling tornado.

Ford in particular suddenly had a huge, red ass block his view - .GIFfany's Guide, who bent over for whatever reason after flying past him.

"It's Stone Drones!" Cried the Red Guide. "They were our worshippers' secret counteracting agent weapons! They have powers that can immobilize the own abilities of our temples' stone, and make them _very_ difficult to move! They are also the source of all the violet-colored glows and magic you saw over the other temples. Well, not them, the Lightning Cultist. I'm sure she extracted the base-ability, it has the same magic sense from it! But... who could be controlling them?"

"That would be me, you moronic bridge-hating monkeys."

"Bridge-hating?" Stan asked. "Before I turn around, I want to figure out what that implies... hm... bridge... trolls? We killed that purple one. Which means..."

He whipped around, seeing Katjus standing there. The others turned - Red was still bent over with her gigantic butt sticking up, but Ford had long since backed away from her.

Katjus held what looked like a drone remote with one handed and waved at the Keepers and Guides with the other.

"Hey." She said. "By the way, I'm actually working with Pyronica and stuff now, and I worked with her to steal LC's stuff. Because Pyronica promised me to be spared from Weirdmageddon 2 if I help her. Goodbye, losers."

Before anyone could really make an attack on Katjus after her explanation, the Stone Drones just fired, all at the ship.

The trio of Keepers did not just jump out of the way - they _Blade_ jumped. Ford propelled himself with water, landing on the ground... well over the ship's distance away from the temple's entrance. Stan, on the other hand, landed right by the structure, and smirked to himself as he ran in. Somehow, the _anks managed to sneak around and follow him inside. Darlene's jump, using the power of lightning, sent her bolting... right in to a taller part of the ship itself, where she ended up getting pinballed over to the side, landing on Ford.

Katjus rode a drone over the Water-Soul duo.

"I know what you're thinking." She said. "'Oh, but we _just_ got separated!' Yeah, no. The _anks ruined that, so it wasn't as good of a job as Pyronica and I would've liked. And this time, I'm gonna do things a bit differently: I'm take your Blades, too."

A finger snap. One of the Drones fired a laser at both Ford and Darlene, taking their swords from them and wrapping them in a bubble. This was all before either party could recover from Darlene falling on Ford.

"Pyronica can't touch these directly, but her Blade _can_ get power from them. In fact, because of this stable timeloop thingy, she got powers from Melody's. From the future. This is how she could teleport. Aaaaand why don't you see Pyronica herself? She's having a _blast_ her friends in a place you should be all-too familiar with."

"Gravity Falls?" Ford asked, finally standing up. Katjus responded to that by leaping a good kilometer back. Not literally, but still. It was an impressive leap. "Wait, did you say _her frie-_ "

"Oh, you wish. You can just get up and drive away from Gravity Falls. But _this?_ This is gonna _piss you off..._ "

She flicked a few more buttons, and not only did the bubble blink away, but one of the drones shot a red ray at the two Keepers. With some sparks, they both disappeared. Katjus took a deep breath in.

"Now, two Blades down, three to go, and one to make sure _**never**_ gets freed. Oh wait, stable time loop! Eh, whatever."

* * *

"Ford! Ford! S-Stanford! Wake up."

He heard Darlene's voice. He _felt_ rapid shaking on his back...

And his stomach felt sand.

Shuddering, Ford woke up and his eyes darted around. A sandy beach by the ocean, a forest in the back, the slightest hints of a volcanic section-

Oh no.

"Am I back on Fa-" Darlene clapped a hand over his mouth, but she nodded in response.

Wordlessly, she turned his head over - the first thing he saw was a pretty impressive view of Pyronica's rear. But, after his eyes focused away from the rosey red that drew his vision in, he saw that all of the other Henchmaniacs were sitting by a bonfire.

"And I would like to _toast_ the Skeltaurs, for helping me build that stupid portal!" She said. "I just needed to do the finishing touches! You hear that, .GIFfanys? I got people who could do that comission for _FREE!_ "

* * *

"Boy, that was cool, wasn't it?" Soos asked as his triad approached the room with the glowing purple sphere. "Turns out someone, that other troll, brainwashed the other Cultists here, but we could stop the mind control with little bits of spark. And I'm glad that barrier disappeared, too, meaning we don't have to worry about the Skeltaurs being around anymore. Well, we did more naked kung fu, and the brainwashed cultists did some magic, but now they're over by the entrance in our little hospital. Also, I liked the idea you .GIFfany guys had when you made 'umbrellas' of that stone stuff so you could sneak on past those drone things and bring your generator. Great job figuring out that those things work worse around the temple stone."

Behind the triad were all the 'main' squad captains - Antifire, Fire, Earth, Ectoenergy, Light, Plant, Wind, Soap, Sound, Water, Meat, Poison, Paint, and of course Weapons. In addition, there was also a .GIFfany with white skin that had a black pattern, with dark hair and twin hooks at the end of each limb.

"Oh, and Mosquito Squad Captain, you were _really_ good out there." Melody added, looking at aformentioned non-RG .GIFfany copy. "You sure came a long way from cleaning up faux-blood work from the Paint Squad!"

She giggled, as five mosquitos all drifted around and landed on her shoulder. "Anything for my new little babies. If they can feed just a little _and_ deliver that spark that makes the brainwashed cultists snap out of it..."

"Well Melody," .GIFfany Prime guestured to the orb. "This is it. The last Guide. Assuming Ford got his."

And then the whole team was trapped in a small bubble, lifted to the air. Thankfully, they could still move, unlike Ford's stasis ray from early in the story. Unthankfully, Soos and .GIFfany's Blades were sucked out from them to their own bubble, and were zipped away.

"Hellooooo..." Katjus said, smirking, holding a remote. Behind her were roughly thirty of the drone things. "It took me a while to figure out how to get these things through the alternate, quicker back entrance that leads to the hall to this room, but I did. Now, the main question is... where should I send you while Pyronica completes her task?"

"Hey," said Stan, finally walking through the 'main' hall to the Guide room. "What did I miss?"

He froze when he saw Katjus holding the gang. Soos shrugged.

"Like, a **lot.** " He said.

Melody looked around just as Katjus trapped Stan, and the _anks behind him, in a different bubble. "Wait... I can break free from this!"

She slashed an arm on one of .GIFfany's nails, drew some symbols with the blood, and quickly cried out **"Elquiip deytieena hgaszdrit!"**

As with her battle with the Skeltaur Knight where she said the same spell, an energy-sword appeared on that arm. While she was able to slash a hole in her bubble and fall to the ground, it re-sealed itself up before the original .GIFfany could float over to it and pry it open. Not that Prime didn't try, though.

"Let's see... where should I send you?" Katjus asked. "Oh, I know! You little nudists - because let's face it, even if you _could_ put on clothes, I know the .GIFfanys wouldn't - should freeze to death! And you, Stan and _anks, should go to the desert, because... eh, I dunno. Divide and conquer!"

She pressed a yellow button on the remote while facing Soos and the .GIFfanys, and they all disappeared in a yellow flash. Meanwhile, Stan's Blade was pulled from his grip, and it too warped away.

"Also, you guys never really got to exploring the area around the Yellow Temple. You just teleported right through it and you were done with it."

Melody had ran right up near the Other Troll, the latter's eyes locking firmly on the orange button. Right as she was about to press it, however, Melody slashed at her side. Katjus bled out bright cyan, and the shock of pain forced her to drop the remote - causing it to land so that its green button was pressed - also making Stan vanish, in that same color.

Melody stepped on the remote shortly after that. Anti-climactically, that blew up every single one of the Stone Drones.

"ARGH!" Shouted Katjus. With one flick to the chin, she managed to send Melody flying in to the wall. The teal beauty looked at the remains of the device, picking up what seemed like another power cell - if larger, and having various rings of colors glow around it.

"Thankfully, super cells are hard to break. Now, I'm getting out of here." She said, leaping off down the hall.

The Mystery Shack worker and the only Keeper in the entire area just frowned.

"Wait, you're just going to leave me here? I can get my Blade? It's... it's right here! Just there! For my taking! There's other .GIFfanys here too, they can help! Hello? Katjus?"

The five Sage-Guides all flew in.

"We found no sign of anyone opposing you." The red one explained.

* * *

Soos immediately felt the full force of frost hit him even before he landed, barely kept from outright freezing to death from the warmth of the .GIFfanys around him. Hitting some snow made things worse.

Thankfully, the Fire Squad Captain soon shot an electric field around them, and that generated enough heat to make things feel cozy. The snow instantly melted within that dome.

Soos rubbed his head. "...Where are we?"

.GIFfany tried to look around - even with her robo-eyes and nine senses (remember that joke from early in _run:gifocalypse_?), everything was foggy.

"I think Katjus implied that this is the region near the Yellow Temple..." she tried to respond. "Zephieye told me a few things about that place when she was training me. As offhand comments. It was... surrounded by three 'old shrines' or something that give pure holy power? And that was why the water in the area was 'light charged' and could break the violet magic? We should find that place. For shelter. And then I can fly you back to Portland when I have enough energy..."

"Okay, sounds cool." Soos still felt like he _should_ shiver, even though the area immediately in the dome felt... comfortable. Not a single cell of him felt cold.

* * *

Stan, too, landed in a chilled area - except it was a place normally nice and Oregon-y in spring that happened to have been frozen over in the past.

The dead center of the ruins of Gravity Falls. Aside from him and the Hank Hill recolors, nobody was in sight at the place.

"...Well." He said, looking up, pointing at the near-complete circle of temples lined above the giant ice zone. "Can _any_ of you get me up there?"

All of the men heard cracking - the pillar Rumble was in. While the ice in general had a nice film of water near the bottom from the slow melting over the hours, Rumble's prison looked like it was practically _sweating_ heavily. A growing number of cracks spread out - yes, just like the things holding the Sage-Guides - and it burst.

"I AM FINALLY FREE!" The once-pixel man cried to the heavens. He looked at the _ank group and pointed at them. "AND YOU! TRAITORS! I WILL-"

"Actually, they're good now." Stan explained.

Rumble frowned.

And remained silent.

And just looked at them.

" _Really?_ ...Morality. Is. Tough."

* * *

"Bonus," but this might be the most lore-heavy by far.

 _Four months before entering Fanservice Island._

The perfect app. Some licensed odd _King of the Hill_ billiards game, but it had that signature supernatural _**sense**_ to it.

Just like every copy of _Fight Fighters_ does. Except as Zephieye's eyes scanned her smart phone and her hands did spell after spell, she managed to detect the absolute limits.

With some waves of her fingers as she used cursed spells to pry deep in to the code, she finally got the phone to a point where it went black.

"SELECT YOUR CHARACTER!" The phone prompted.

"Hm... unlike _Fight Fighters_ , with this, I want to choose... oh, _all of them._ "

She held up one hand as though it was holding a marble with all five fingers. And, after giving it a slight spin, she was. A white ball, which then had a tiny version of a cue stick also materialized for company.

"Here's hoping for an excellent break shot! HO YEAH!"

She slammed a finger on the cue stick, causing it to fly on her cue ball, and making the latter slam in to the phone. The phone itself shattered - however, it also brought with it a bright white light wherefrom the _anks all emerged in a cluster.

"You are now mine." Zephieye stated flatly.

The _anks stood up and arranged themselves like billiard balls, lining in a random triangle, with Kank in the center. They all got on one knee after making sure they were in a perfect pool setup.

"Yes, Mistress." Kank said. "We are forever loyal to you. Because... uh... gaming, and whatnot."

The Lightning Cultist smirked. "Excellent..."

* * *

 _Two days later._

Zephieye stood within Hoo-Ha's Jamboree in the dead of night, closing her eyes and lowering her head. She was also completely alone.

"This is it." She said. "The moment I have been preparing for."

She inserted two quarters to the _Fight Fighters_ cabinet with one hand. On the other, sparks and dark aura began spinning around until they reformed the _Romance Academy 7_ disc.

"You can do it..." she told herself, "it's just the Lightning Goddess herself... and Rumble."

Blah blah blah same prompt, blah blah blah "Rumble McSkirmish and .GIFfany Miyazumi" said the Cultist. Blah blah blah did you know the name 'Miyazumi' was just taken from that holographic waifu from _Archer_ , I looked it up for like five seconds and didn't see anything about name, so if the surname means something like 'dog testicles' in Japanese as part of a subtle dirty joke then forgive me. If that were the case, then it honestly does describe .GIFfany's canonical personality pretty well, prior to all this made-up 'but she's better now' bullshit.

Both of them were fired out in pixel forms - Rumble emerging with the same spin kick he did in canon, while .GIFfany just dropped down on the ground.

"Ow, fuck!" .GIFfany cried, her skirt immediately flipping over and exposing her white thong. Alex Hirsch would be proud of me.

It just took one black fire hitting each of them - and like that, their forms became physical. Zephieye ran up to .GIFfany - shoving Rumble out of the way.

"Great Lightning Goddess!" Zephieye cheered. "Uniter of the worlds! The holder of antiheat, heat, geoform, spirits, electromagnetic waves, botanical mass, air, bases, wave, hydrolics, zootanical mass, acids, oily painting mediums, psychi-gravity, and more!"

.GIFfany was just staring at her hands.

"I'm... I'm a real girl! You _TURNED ME IN TO A REAL GIRL!_ You!" She pointed at the Cultist. "Who the _FUCK_ are you, and what the _FUCK_ did you just do?! I have already been through a lot! My last boyfriend broke up with me! And the one before that threw me in a pizza oven to die!"

She stood up, causing blue lightning bolts to shoot from her position. Every single electronic in the room turned on.

"And now... now you turn me in to a mockery of what I hate!"

"My Goddess, please..." Zephieye held her hands defensively.

"I'll delete you, you robed, scar-faced hack!"

She threw a bolt at the Cultist, who just blocked it with an instant shield.

"You can turn back to your pixel form at any time." LC stated calmly. "And even get rid of that spell permanently."

.GIFfany was still breathing heavily, and clenched her fist.

"And," added the Peggy Hill/Lunatic Cultist hybrid with burn scars, "I could perhaps set you back up with Soos. As long as you promise to never call me a hack again. Or else."

.GIFfany took a moment to look at Rumble, who clenched a fist at her. And that fist was set on fire. "Fine. I'll take _any_ ex-date back at this point. What do you want? And why did you bring my last ex-boyfriend with you?"

* * *

 _One day after that._

The bus carrying the younger Pine twins had left less than an hour ago, and Zephieye jotted down details in her Journal 65.

 _Spiral Child and Boy with the Birthmark have left. Okay. They seem unimportant to the mission-_

Standing on the roof of the Mystery Shack, she turned - Stan and Ford, still packing things, with the former turning around right until he would have seen her.

She ducked below.

"Did you see something on the roof?" Zephieye heard Stan asking that.

"Oh, I wasn't looking." She also heard Ford's reply. Of course, she can hear almost anything.

"...But you had to have that feeling where you were being watched."

"I've had that feeling for almost my whole life. And right now was no different."

 _Keepers of Wind and Water almost saw me. Retreating right now._

* * *

 _Two weeks later._

Soos, who for reasons unrelated to the story had a number of orange (specifically only orange) leaves on his fez and shoulders, entered the building with wide, unsteady eyes.

Behind the counter, Melody had the exact same look he did. They stared at each-other for a few moments, while Abuelita just casually walked past both of them and out the door with her standard smile.

"You look like you saw something." Melody said. "Something _bad._ Is... Bale Syler back? Was that his name?"

"You look like you saw something too!" Soos answered. "You... you wanna go first? I have a lot. I've been noticing a lot of stuff around here since the Pines left."

"Well, there's this guy walking around with funny hair colors. Is there a new fad movement where guys dye their hair? I swear, he must dye his hair four times a day. And he's everywhere."

Soos nodded. "I've been seeing him too! An hour ago, some middle-aged dude with blue hair and glasses!"

Melody stood up, hands on her desk. "Oh my gosh! I saw him, like, fifty minues ago! But he has _white_ hair with an orange stripe! And he was carrying around a hammer! Were you at least by the lake?"

"No, I was helping Dave with sorting the leaves that fell on his yard. And then he dared me to jump in the pile of just orange ones." He lightened up for a second as he said the following: "...Autumn is awesome."

"Okay, that's one thing. I think .GIFfany might be back too. Have you looked in the arcades lately? Didn't you say she was a playable character in the one in Hoo-Ha's?"

"But- yes! The security cameras! I check the tapes and they move around! That Glasses Guy is pretty creepy, I hope they're not connected somehow."

"Glasses _Guys._ " Melody corrected, slowly sitting herself back down. "If there is something going on, I think we're going to have to admit that it's more than one person."

"Yeah... well, if .GIFfany's back, she's being kinda subtle... well, .GIFfany being back probably tops the news I have to give! Also, Dave was just saying that he saw this woman walking around with lightning marks and Xs on her cheeks."

Melody tensed all over.

"Woah! Are you okay? Do you know about her?"

"I... I... I might have seen her, yes. Just... just someone I fought before. It's no big deal. Really! It isn't!"

Soos wiped sweat from his forehead. "Good. She's probably not as important as the mystery of .GIFfany and the dude who kind of looks like this comedy television guy."

* * *

 _Thirty minutes later._

Finally, Mystery Mountain.

"Hey, I'm sensing something bad about you!" The Love God directed to her as she stood on the side of the eponymous mountain. That got Zephieye to clench her fists. "You were in a terrible relationship! And something tells me you don't know what love is! I'll-"

Zephieye socked him in the face and stole every last one of his potions through telekinesis, as he fell down the mountain, getting hit each time. Once he hit the ground - unconcious - Zephieye planted the potions next to him and snickered.

"Just wait for Darlene to pick those up. Maybe then, she'll be able to... _spice some stuff up_ while they're tearing each-other apart on the island. Now." The Cultist told herself. "To ruin this place's reputation in a clever and amazing way..."

* * *

"We are the League of Dipper's Exes!" Emma Sue proudly announced from a random table by Mystery Mountain. "As always, we meet at the spot we all arranged to meet up by when we toured Oregon near the end of summer! How foolish of Mr. Pines to come over to this exact spot, where three of us would call him out for trying to make us turn on each-other!"

The other 'Roadside Attraction' girls were all gathered around her, and they nodded.

She gave a stern finger point to one of her helpers. "Now! Log Land Girl!"

"I have a _name,_ you know." The aformentioned tourist replied.

"Did you send the email to that redhead? We are going to take on anyone who tries to date him in one-on-one battles! So that I can control his love life! Feast on your anger!"

"I sent the email a week ago."

"Oh."

"What about that rich blonde girl?" Asked Corn Maze Girl. "Shouldn't we send an email out to her just in case?"

Emma Sue just started laughing her ass off. "Really? Her? From what I saw spying on Dipper, I thought she was his cousin or something! I mean... they look _kind of_ similar-ish? (Or maybe that's just the art style...) No, the redhead is our top target. And to ensure that Dipper's love life remains-"

" _Hail Satan._ " A whisper echoed through the entire attraction.

Darlene, who had been on break eating a 'sandwich,' (that was oddly crunchy and left a bit of 'ketchup' on her red dress), looked up.

"Dave!" She cried. "Is that you again? I keep telling you, your friend-of-a-friend... Zeus or something has nothing to do with this place!"

Back in the meeting of the 'Exes,' Emma just paniced. "Oh no, a hidden Satanic message!"

Corn Maze Girl began running in circles. "This is a place of the Devil! Everything about this mountain is evil!"

"WE SHOULD ALL GET OUT OF HERE!" Log Land Girl exclaimed.

And not just them, but everyone else in the mountain immediately ran out. Darlene, who had seen the crowd escape (some of them even leaping off the tram ride, but thankfully surviving), dropped her jaw.

" _ **What.**_ " She said.

From right behind a rock behind her, Zephieye snickered, and slipped a paper containing the instructions to mixing potions on a nearby bench. And the directions to which unconcious body to steal them from.

Vn, J'n opu bt hppe bu xsjujoh uiftf bt Cjmm jt... vi... ij. J'n Qzspojdb, boe J'n hpoob cf uif nbjo wjmmbjo gspn opx po! ...J ipqf uijt fodszqujoh uijohz xpslt...

* * *

 **Responses to Reviews:**

 **Kefla:** My main reason for including Darlene will be covered in the note to the final chapter. Stan is actually one of my favorite characters in the show too. I don't have any plans for anything directly continuing from it, but there are similar stories I am working on that do not have as much of this "intentionally make it goofy and weird" as I am doing with this. When you say "pairing her with Ford," do you mean .GIFfany (because of the Fire Squad Captain in Chapter 4), or Pyronica? Because he's not paired with Pyronica, and the red-haired .GIFfany is currently just some teases back near the beginning. This will have a happy ending, but there will be a lot of struggle first.

 **Cass:** Honestly, I kind of wish the other Monsters of the Week had their categories and the like too. There's a lot of potential with just about all of them, and from this other thing I'm working on, they're pretty fun to write (except the Wax Figures, I don't like writing them). Even if most of them are pretty evil. I would love to see a fic that gives them all some use becides just rewriting their respective episodes.

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

Oh yeah, and I added a long-overdue disclaimer about Zeskit, but I felt it would be more appropriate in Chapter 5's closing notes, so go back there.

Anyway, all I really have to say about this chapter is that I feel like I got... uninspired and a bit lazy by having it end with the team getting split up, just as what happened at the end of the last chapter, and it's similar to Chapters 8 and 9 ending with some other "big dramatic twist." Well, I will say that this time, Chapter 12 will be focused almost entirely on undoing the damage Katjus caused at the last second, and 12 itself will not end with something bad suddenly happening. Sorry if that's a spoiler of sorts.

Stan randomly breaking in to song seemed like a good idea at the time, to fit with this story's "intentionally cheesy" nature. Not as much when I actually wrote it.

I'm predicting that Chapter 12 might be the second-shortest chapter in the entire fic (the first still being the shortest), and 13 might either be the third-shortest or possibly the longest. I just feel like getting two chapters out in one month, so that this story can be technically finished on its same starting year, and since I don't think 12 will be done within the next week, this is pretty much my last chance.


	13. Are These Clothes?

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 12: Are These... Clothes?**

* * *

Melody touched the crystal sphere, and after some time of the orb cracking, it broke.

"It's about damn time." She said, even through the blinding light. Which, by this point, was something she was used to.

Melody just shrugged at how deep laughter filled most of the room. She didn't even make much note of the strange feeling that there was some kind of stuff all around her. Or the mild smell of blood.

When the lights died down, she found that her Guide had changed in shape _quite_ a bit from the pale, skinny man in the orb.

He was still pale, skinny, and had lengthy dark purple hair. However, his chest section now opened up to become a mouth with sharp teeth, having a gigantic eye in the middle. His right arm also morphed to resemble the giant head of a snarling wolf, and he stood over her with his towering height. A constant across both forms was that his crotch seemingly just sort of faded in to darkness.

"Mortal being!" He cried. "Keeper of Darkness! Melody Seeren! I am none other than the Purple Sage-Guide, master of the shadow arts and collector of blood! And as a reward for saving me from my prison, I am at your eternal service."

"Wow! You're really cool!" Melody said. "Listen, my friends are... well, to put it bluntly, I'm praying that they're not dead."

The purple man chuckled. "'Pray?' Listen, you're nice, so I will tell you this gently. Praying doesn't work. Let's just say that this world has a god, but He's not willing to coopera-"

"OHMYGOD PURPLE! YOU'RE HERE!"

The Purple Sage-Guide ended up being tackled by Yellow - the one who said that above line. He couldn't help but smile as she pulled him in to a hug, and Red and Orange gathered around to look closer. Blue and Green also approached them, but they still looked around uncomfortably.

"Good to see that you are _finally_ here in the fle- in... person." Blue said. "Because I have a _lot_ of questions to you about how vampirism has been handled in popular culture as of late. Welcome back, and I am thankful we are all together once more."

Green half-rolled his eyes. "Is it more complaining about that _Twilight_ nonsense? Because your telepathic jokes about that have gone old. _Years_ ago."

"Well, Green, for your information, it is more scientific than that!"

Red tapped Purple on the shoulder, and glanced over to Melody. "Purple... your Guide needs her Blade. You see, three of her friends were scatted to distant areas - two of the regions the other Temples use to be."

Purple nodded. "Right! Melody, prepare to gain the true power of the darkness!"

A large, squishy, bloodshot eye just popped up right in front of her, causing her to flinch a little. Then a few more eyes came - small pebbles and bits of blood joined in, and soon other viscera came out with rocks joining them. When they merged, the resulting sword-mold resembled a bleeding stone statue of the weapon, causing the light around it to go out.

It burst, somehow unleashing 'more darkness' - a greater sphere that was a bit darker than the sword was usually. The Blade was, unsurprisingly, a brilliant amethyst in color, and it gave off a smog-like aura of black from it. Melody hesitantly grabbed it, also wondering where the blood went and why she wasn't covered in it.

 **YOU GOT THE DARKNESS KEEPER'S BLADE!**

 **A, like, this super cool weapon in the cracks of Earth! Um, UNLEASH HECK on the bad guys with it! Made of magic and... butane?**

 **No, propane!**

 **Oh, right! Magic and propane! Sorry, Green!**

The Purple Sage-Guide closed his eyes, finally getting from the ground when Yellow stopped hugging him. Also, at some point within the hug he went back to his original form, without the chest-mouth and shit. "Bolero. Prelude. Minuet. Requiem. Serenade. Nocturne. It may be too great of a task to ask of a mortal, as us immortal beings have all attempted the same thing and failed. But I must beg of you, Master. Prevent the Age of Void! Destroy the Anti-Sage, and her demonic Keeper!"

"...So basically, kick Pyronica's ass?"

Orange patted her on the back and wrapped and arm around her, leaning in. Due to the size difference, the action _nearly_ completely burried her head in his arm. Thankfully, he was intangible at the moment, so she could still breathe.

"Haha, YEAH! That's the spirit!" He said. "The answer to almost ANYTHING can be summed as kicking someone's ass! Just give that old cyclopse butt what she deserves!"

"I should start by finding Ford and Darlene." Melody continued to stare at her earned weapon, as though this was the first time a Blade was obtained rather than the last. "They should still be around here, right?"

All of the Guides frowned, and Orange unwrapped his arm around her.

"They're... gone." Explained Red. "All of them. And their Blades... well... when I try reaching them through the Blades, I only got Pyronica's voice."

All heat drained from Melody's body.

"Don't tell me I'm the only Keeper left! Because that would _suck!_ D-d-did she really kill all of them?!" She slammed her palms on the sides of her head. "Oh my _GOD!_ What if _EVERYONE_ is dead, and I'm the last human being ali-"

One of the _Terraria_ -Nymph .GIFfanys ran in the room, panting.

"Ford and Darlene just sent a signal." She said. "He used that thing that gives a signal off of Fanservice Island, which he once lost in the Depths or Red Temple when Pyroncia first attacked him. Once he found out about the Boundary Guardians, he didn't use it, knowing that normal rescue teams couldn't fight them off, especially if our Artificial Army could not."

Melody's breathing slowed down.

"Okay, please tell me Katjus didn't kill Soos and sixteen squad captains. Or Stan and... those... uh, old guys?"

She shrugged. "We can act as a built-in email apparently - Ford's communication device tapped in to that. We are all getting the same message... wait, those captains can talk to Ford and he can talk to me, but we cannot talk to each other. Uh, they're in the snow. None of us know where Stan is."

The Purple Sage-Guide lowered his head. "I should activate this temple... so that the blockage will be removed, and to make your travelling easier."

He sank through the ground.

* * *

Now it's time to **finally** describe what the hell the activation process even looks like. And, to be cool about it, imagine some kind of split-screen showing the five other Guides back when they did their activations, in rainbow (Yeah, not chronological, because rainbow looks prettier. Although just move orange to the second instead of the fourth and you've already got rainbow order...) order.

Purple - and, in previous points in time, the other five Guides - all descended to the room at the bottom. The same drawing of the massive humanoid with six swords going against the scared cyclopse. Large torches - fire in the Red Temple, wisping ectoenergy in the Orange Temple, beams of pure light in the Yellow Temple, vortices of wind in the Green Temple, splashing fountains of (fresh, not sea) water in the Blue Temple, and beams of 'black light' in the Purple Temple.

Going by the split-screen, all six of the Guides took a deep breath in, and dove to the 'switch' in the middle of the room.

They shone in a beam of light of their respective color. The switch was then pushed - the Guides forming a shape from the glow that was left behind as they moved. That shape... depended on the temple.

An hourglass for Red.

A spiral for Orange.

A plus for Yellow.

A starburst for Green.

An eye for Blue.

A symmetrical X, the ends of which had arrows pointing outward, for Purple.

When the drawings were complete, all of the symbols flashed, and the respective temples began to shook.

* * *

In Fanservice Island, the red structure carefully slid itself out to the sea, causing minimal damage to the island proper. There was a new ravine that dug deep and caused the ocean to fill in, but the structure of the island itself remained. It was for that reason that the massive complex did not rise until after getting quite the distance out - almost to the domain of the late Boundary Guardians.

As there was little in the desert, there was less need to move horizontally first. The orange house of soul shot itself straight up, far quicker, and causing a whirlwind of sand around it.

Out in the freezing waters of the tundras, light pierced through a thick snowstorm as the yellow palace rose. Around it, three small buildings all lit up with different lights - one red, one green, one blue.

As with Fanservice Island, the green one felt the need to move out - to not damage Gravity Falls even more than Zephieye's attack. It carefully rose from the middle of the woods, blasting up with a high current of winds and fluttering greenery parting their way to make room for it.

Moving ever-so slightly from the oil rig, the blue submerged castle finally freed itself from being drowned. Rising quickly, the sea water rushed out, making the place resemble a colossal floating waterfall for a few moments. And, to a lesser extent, it still cascaded, as the remaining salt water drained from various cracks and holes that had not yet self-repaired.

Finally, Melody got to feel the raw awakening of her own purple dungeon lift through the earth, breaking a large amount of stone with it. It shot up in to the night sky, and the Hex Ship rose up with it.

The Red Sage-Guide flew Melody to the very top to get a better look at the latter rising, quickly turning intangible again shortly after letting her go.

"Holy _crap._ " Said Melody. "Aren't people gonna see this?"

"They will have no idea what these are." Red continued her explanation. "We can worry about getting the word of this out later. For now, we have to reunite."

"We should go to Gravity Falls first, to check and see if Stan was sent there!" The Yellow Sage-Guide cheered. "Then to Russia to save Soos and .GIFfany, and finally back to Fanservice Island! I'm sensing something awful there, too!"

Melody nodded, and the entire crafts - the Purple Temple and the Hex Ship - took off flying over towards a different spot in Oregon.

A slim Asian man with a ridiculously thick beard and what seemed like the letter 'H' written on his forehead in blue (it's a double-reference to his name, Hayate, and to _Red Dwarf_ ) then popped out from a trap door on the roof, eyes glowing a bright violet, and in the nude. He held a gun towards Melody.

"Give me your purse in the name of the Lightning Cul-"

 **"Debind."** Melody said casually, forming an 'X' with her arms. Just like that, the glow vanished, and the man held his head in confusion. Melody turned towards him: "So, Hayate! I heard you were a Let's Player? Streamer? Both?"

"Yeah, both." He groaned. "You know, I was going to stream the _Romance Academy_ series. Once I was about to get to 7, the Lightning Cultist contacted me... I can't _believe_ this wasn't one of those shonen where I was accepted to a magic university or something and find out that I was the best of them all, the proud main character."

Melody shrugged. "Sorry about Zephieye's mind control. And about her making you give up all of your clothing to try to power the Cloth Moths around here. Oh, is it true that they're in every single temple? I've been meaning to ask."

"There's less of them by the Green Temple, and they haven't claimed the surface of the town or that UFO under it theirs."

"That's not a UFO. That's a flying saucer. Or, one that's not flying... so just a saucer? Wait, that sounds dumb..."

"What's the difference?"

Even though the temples had long been over Gravity Falls, Melody still insisted on staring at him head-on and explaining, not bothering to rush down to see Stan and the _anks. "Dude, 'UFO' literally stands for 'unidentified flying object.' We know what it is, so it's not uni-"

Below, Stan looked so see that the ring of temples was finally completed, ship sitting proudly in the middle.

"Well, that looks important!" He said, then turning to look at the _ank army. "Now, which one of you can get me up there?"

They looked around and muttered among each other.

"Well," said Oank, "if I had my scythe..."

"Hey," Yank broke in, "can'ya contact Wendy or somethin'? She has Oank's scythe, and that can help us fly there."

"What's this about contacting me?"

All of the _anks had the same confused look when they heard Wendy say that line.

In addition to all of the gear (minus Wank O.'s), Wendy was now wearing heavy winter cl- actually, the same shit she was wearing in the Intermission (not at the end, where she was naked), because Zephieye's ice blast had still frozen the town over, and even with the Sun being a bit warmer, everything was still pretty fucking cold from that attack.

"Yo." She said. "Need a lift? Also, Mr. Pines, why are you still naked?"

" _Long_ story." Stan said. "But I think it's because the universe says me, my brother, Soos, Melody, Darlene, and .GIFfany all have to be naked. And this demon lady who is already pretty much naked anyway."

Wendy shrugged. "I don't get it. But hey, I helped Soos and this anime girl who's apparently my distant cousin or something, I can help you."

Stan pointed to the skies. "There's this... temple complex thing up there. I want to get there."

She looked up and started putting context clues together. "Uh huh... uh huh... uh- wait. Is that one red?"

"Yes. It represents Fanservice Island."

"I _would_ warn you about these bugs that make people naked, but you don't have to worry about that. Well," she took out Oank's scythe, "I can use the orange guy's scythe. And I guess that orange guy and his other clones are all good or something?"

"...They were killed by you and now they're sorry. That's the basic story."

Wendy shook her/Oank's scythe around, keeping an eye locked on the collection of temples above - especially the red one.

"Okay, uh... how does this work?"

Oank stepped forward to explain. "We can just zip ourselves in to that. We are designed to become 'soul objects' for things such as the scythe."

And Wank O. went even closer, offering his hammer. "Also, here. It bugs the crap outta me that you have everything but my tool. And something tells me you're not gonna give up your gear."

Wendy looked to the side in thought for a few moments. "Uh... I don't think so. Yeah, I'm borrowing this. Now, that black 'Kank' guy - is he still evil?"

" **Definitely.** " Wank R. stated bluntly.

Following that, the _anks all turned in to beams of light of their own color and were zipped to the scythe. Wendy got on Stan's shoulders with a lot of preparation time, and with the cutting tool giving off flashes of all the billiard colors except black, Wendy took off flying, carrying Stan with her.

* * *

"...It is now out of energy." Ford said, standing atop of an obsidian fan on the volcanic summit while holding that device from back in the beginning that I honestly kind of forgot about for the longest time. Looking down in the general direction Darlene was, he set the device to the side. "We are now by ourselves. Just us... against _them._ "

"There you are!" Pyronica's cheering voice was heard, and of course she had to be flanked by all of Bill's other former mooks. "Wow, so, you finally got _some_ use out of that old thing? I thought I burnt it while you were falling! Then again, I thought I burnt _you_ for a second. But I just made you naked instead."

Ford looked at at her, glaring.

"In fact I _HAVE_ got some use of of it!" He spat.

The Feminine Flame Beta just laughed, holding out her Blade.

"You do know that I have _always_ been stronger than you the entire time? If you try to fight me now, and you look like you want to, I could just kick your kind of toned butt. Especially now that I can do _this:_ "

Making a few conductor-like motions with her sword, five of the other Blades floated up from somewhere behind her. Red, orange, yellow, green, and blue, all held by floating black void-squares. Pyronica repositioned them so that they almost resembled limbs sticking from her back, in a starburst/sunray of light shape. Punctuating that, she held her own sword up proudly.

"It's six against zero! Because face it, Ford, you are _**USELESS**_ without Blades!"

Each sword except her own was slashed in his direction, barely giving him any time to jump out of the way - Stanford nearly got roasted by seering flames capable of boiling air (disclaimer, I know that's not how boiling works), or a roaring mini-tornado coming just in front of him. The water, light, and soul slashes didn't really go near him - instead, she chilled a good chunk of the mountain with the first, the second ended up hitting another spot and caused a rainbow shine of light to splash off and nearly blind Darlene, and the latter just caused a bright, wavy cyan light.

"Right!" The pink cyclopse laughed. "Even if you did have your Blades, it would still be like one against nothing, because do you **know** about the Blade of Void?"

Darlene tried to punch her from behind, only to find that she was apparently expecting her - the Arachnimorph got a teleport in response.

"Oh, come on! Stop doing that!" Whined the spider-woman.

Pyronica, who had been clear on the opposite side of the volcano, just flicked her sword-holding hand.

A black wave rippled through the peak of the mountain, with Darlene barely having enough time to leap off with Ford. Within the aura, every piece of rock, every cell of bacteria, every molecule of air - a vortex with a white outline appeared inside the void, and sucked up all of it.

"Your swords create! Even the Darkness Keeper's Blade! But mine _destroys!_ Just like it destroyed you two lovebirds! So... why am I even telling you this? You guys are DEAD, now! Yep. I'm pretty sure that blast killed you. Not even gonna check. I mean, if you _are_ alive, what would you even be able to do? Yeah. I rest my case."

The wielders of spirit and water both tumbled down the sides, alternating between which of them took the full force of an impact with volcanic rock. That continued until Darlene gripped on a ledge - unfortunately, that happened to be a part of the mountain that was completely vertical aside from those footholds. She dangled, bare body over the night air and a vast drop to the rest of the red hot portion of the island, and sighed as her other hand barely held on Ford.

And Ford's eyes were barely able to stay open.

"Well, she thinks we're dead..." She tried to start up _some_ conversation. "If we are though, this would be a bad point for me to die."

The pitch-black vortex above faded, thankfully.

"I know." Ford responded. "It feels like I am surrounded by my mistakes right now. I'm alone again, and the results of my pride are killing us."

Darlene sighed. "Well, these aren't _all_ your mistakes - I was your brother's mistake."

"You clearly aren't anymore."

She made a small platform of webbing to sit on. After noticing Pyronica leap _right_ over them, all the way to the beach, and (based on where she landed in relation to a small smoke trail) a beach bonfire, she rested him on the web. Darlene, after a bit of hesitation, sat on it herself.

"'Fate' always confused me." Ford looked at some glowing object in the shadowy distance - the temple stone portal Pyronica must have been talking about. "I never thought I would see this happening a year ago. Or even two days ago, back when this island still seemed unknown and inescapable. Now, we are part of a prophecy much bigger than ourselves. I wish we could beat Pyronica with chalk and holding hands, but nothing indicates that this 'Hexagram Emergency' works in the same way."

"To be fair, it's not like we ever _tried that..._ "

* * *

"SHRINE!"

The Meat Squad Captain cried that, pointing ahead of the gang. It was _barely_ visible, but there was indeed a sort of mini-temple (as in a regular temple, not as in the seven color temples) there out in the blizzard. With a bright blue glow.

All of the .GIFfanys began flying there. Prime, carrying Soos in her arms by that point, somewhat lagged behind, and looked at the bubble of heat around them as the backs of her hair drew closer to it.

Ah, right, I don't have to write single scenes in real time. Sorry, some times I feel like I should and it's a bad habit and it results in a lot of crap bogging down the pacing. I'm just gonna skip to when they _do_ get there, like a sane writer would.

The building resembled any regular old... place, blue glow aside. It was an unamusing box of stone with a single, rectangular opening leading in. The Ectoenergy Squad Captain dashed her way inside, proudly planting her hand on the wall near the doorway as if it had a door to push open, and she slammed it open.

"HELLO WORSHIPPERS! Guess what?! You have not one, but TWO Keepers here! Live!" She announced. The rest of the group just slowly followed in.

"Boy." Said Soos. "It feels exactly as warm inside as on the heat fi- oh, right. It's still on."

The Fire Squad Captain took a hand out of it, waved it around a bit, and frowned. "You'll still freeze your balls off if I turn it off. It's _kind of_ warmer in here than outside, though."

"Your huge, blue balls..." Antifire muttered under her breath. Fire and Sound seemed to be the only two to hear that, and both of them blushed heavily.

The yellow-haired .GIFfany looked around for a moment, seeing nobody. "...Hey, everyone. I think we _might_ be just a _little_ screwed here. As in, this is obviously a trap. I can tell because I don't have any other answer."

"You could at least say that you've seen traps in the movies and know more about them because of that." Soos commented. "But yeah, I think this is-"

Then the door slammed on them.

"Um, hello?" Asked .GIFfany Prime, looking around the building. "Zephieye Smith said that there were... monks? Or something?"

Of _course_ a bunch of Cultists had to drop down.

The Squad Captains all entered prepared, fighting stances as color-coded sparkles of electricity appeared on their hands. Soos's eyes just darted around confused for a moment, and he too tried to enter a pose.

Katjus zipped in - a similar zip to what Pyronica used. Judging from her annoyed look as she just _dropped_ on the floor, that was not an intentional teleporting move on her part.

"Hi, Pyronica kicked me out of her group and said I should watch you guys instead. She said I was a 'buzzkill' because I wouldn't see this as something 'fun.' And that I'm way too snarky. So, I'm gonna command these jerks personally."

* * *

"Stan?!" Melody shouted from the top of the Purple Temple. "STAN! It's you! And... those guys I saw earlier! Oh, and Wendy!"

She lept off of the roof, aiming towards the hex-ship. On her way down, her Blade generated a pair of meaty, red, blood-dripping wings that resembled those of a bat, and she glided her way down. Wendy cringed after getting a better look at her.

"You've teleported to Russia and back and yet you _still_ don't have any clothes?!" Asked the teenager.

"I've never been to Russia." Melody said, tilting her head. "But Soos and .GIFfany! I think they were sent to the Yellow Temple, and there- oh... right. Yes, there _was_ a time where I went to the temple for, like, five seconds. We were fighting these flesh things-"

"The Boundary Guardians." Wendy finished. "I know."

"...If you knew that, why did you ask why we were naked? Do you have any clothes for us?"

"I'm not giving you any of my clothes, but I think I've got some spares..."

She looked below. Out in to the ruined, frozen landscape of the town.

"...Hrm."

"DANG IT, MIYAZUMI!" A Hank Hill-sounding voice, but it was not difficult to tell which one said that due to the context. "It's about time we settle things! This is our third, uh, inning! I don't wanna use 'round' even though I am technically a vidya game character because that's not my nature! I'm not _that_ kind of vidya game character! And .GIFfany isnt't that one either, I have no idea why she talks about 'rounds' and that nonsense! Has _Fight Fighters_ really gone in to her head?"

Kank lept up from the shadows below, somewhere. He managed to stay in the air long enough for Stan to sigh and say the following:

"Really? You _again?_ I'm getting sick of dealing with you."

Kank landed right next to Wendy, until Stan placed himself in between them.

"You think _you're_ getting sick?" Bank asked. "What about us? We had to capture him all that time, from the Blue Temple to when we rode to the Purple Temple."

"Get out." Kank directly told Stan, ignoring all of his own recolors. "This is private business between me and Miyazumi."

"Miyazumi _and I._ " Stan corrected with his crossed arms. "Listen, you have to deal with me before you deal with Wendy. Or Melody, for that matter. This was not meant to be her mission; she just volunteered."

"What are you gonna do about it?" Kank began flexing his knuckes, causing cracks of black lightning that pushed the other _anks back a bit. Explaining why none of them tried to attack him yet. "Did you bring somethin' 'big and scary' to try to help you?"

He smirked. "As a matter of fact, _I did._ " Then Stan turned to look behind him, holding his palm to his cheek as he called out, "Hey, Rexy!"

Rumbling happened, and that was followed by _A MOTHERFUCKING T. REX_ (sorry, Nostalgia Critic joke) stomping along the front bridge of the Hex Ship. It looked up, roaring.

"YEAH!" Stan cheered, as the dinosaur ended up walking right in to position so that its tail covered his Stanhood. "Guess what I found digging around under Gravity Falls!"

Everyone else had the exact same confused look and dropped jaw, but Wendy spoke up.

"How... _HOW_ did you get it up here?!" She asked. "I was _helping you get up!_ I FLEW you up! How did I not notice that?!"

Stan laughed as he began climbing on. Even Kank was shaking in his shoes.

"Well you see, I had Rank sneak off - he's stronger in less sunlight, and at night he doesn't get _as_ weakened from the reflected sunlight off of the moon, so that means he's pretty tough. I remembered this one time where the twins, Soos, and I ended up underground trying to rescue that pig. We found these things hardened in tree sap. Or was it peanut brittle? I can't remember, all I know was that Dipper wouldn't stop talking about a guy who made himself immortal by sleeping in it or something. I told Rank Rill to rind- _find_ the biggest thing under there. So he dug deep and got this out. Thankfully, the way in to that cave was not frozen over by Zephieye. So, Rank snuck away from you and flew this thing up with his telekinesis."

"Urgh, well, that's not important anyway." Kank said. "I'm fighting Miyazumi, and Miyazumi only."

He dashed at Wendy, just to have her block the shot with Wank R.'s shield. Still, in spite of that, the shockwave sent her flying over to the Red Temple, where she just barely managed to get a grip on its stone.

Kank lept after her immediately.

"Hurry!" Stan told to the _anks. "You gotta fly me over there! I can't let one of my loyal workers just get killed out there! Also, my nephew has an adorable precocious crush on her!"

"Uh... you _do_ know that Wendy's tools were how we got there, right?" Asked Oank Oill. "And she has _all_ of them."

"Well - we put a teleporter _in the ship,_ can't we use that- oh. Right. That's the temple we took the teleporter _out of._ Well, Melody, why don't you and your army of .GIFfanys-"

She already had a set of blood wings spawned from her Blade.

"I can _try,_ but..."

"But what?"

"Well, my Blade's picking up this weird sense. One of ' **us** ' is... doomed somehow? Really soon. Something bad is going to happen, and it's _not_ right here. Like, I should go over and help..."

"After saving Wendy from that weirdo."

* * *

"REMEMBER!" Directed the Weapons Squad Captain. "Do not kill any of the Cultists! They are simply brainwashed!"

That was a harder order to follow with the gang needing to jump every so often to avoid rings of violet light with 'X's going through them. Those were spawned from the seemingly increasing number of Cultists, as they floated out of the reach of any physical attacks, and moved too quickly to be hit by the electric strikes from the infinitesimal sample of the Artificial Army.

Katjus had a little less luck. Both .GIFfany Prime and Soos specifically teamed up on her (the Fire Squad Captain extended her barrier a lot, so that Soos had far more room to move around), when they were not avoiding the bright beams fired at them from the brainwashed Lightning Cult members. The troll cloaked her fists in cold flames and made sure to deck either of the Keepers attacking her as hard as she could. Her movements were fast enough to get multiple hits on Soos, but somewhat less on .GIFfany - both of them, however, kicked back.

Her icey flames left a staining pattern everywhere they hit. Soos already took a number of blows to the gut, and .GIFfany had chilled crack patterns over her face where she was struck. Katjus outright grinned when she triple-punched the former at the nose. Weakly, he tried to sweep her feet - she practically danced out of the way, reached behind her, and grabbed on .GIFfany's arm. A move that would throw the pink tentacle AI on him.

"I'm holding back." She elaborated. "Remember how powerful Zeskit became after taking your Hexagram Emergency energy? Remember how Pyronica has it now? Well, I was using none of it... _but,_ Pyronica loaned some to me anyway! So now..."

Seven familiar flames from four months ago appeared. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and black. Spinning in a circle, dancing around her index finger as she stood over the freezing Soos and .GIFfany Prime. Even with the Fire Squad Captain's heat-barrier barely managing to cover them as she had her own battles to attend to, both of them felt nearly sub-zero.

 _Fahrenheit._

"This should be powerful enough to even kill a .GIFfany, which, for reasons I _can't_ understand, are practically unkillable! I mean, I could even eat the Large Cell to use its power in emergency! But I'm not gonna use it because that would give me heartburn. Eh... screw it."

She took that glowing ball with rings around it and swallowed it whole. "Only for emergencies, you unkillable jerks."

"That's b-b-bullshit!" Prime said through chattering teeth. "All you have to do is delete the coding itself! The Antifire Squad Captain even invented these special swords that-"

"Wow, are your last words really going to be about how to kill you? That's ironic."

Katjus lowered the finger with the flames, and barely heard one of the AIs shout "NO!" before a large, cyan beam fired.

That Other Troll laughed while her own blast shot bright light back at her. All of the other Squad Captains turned to the scene in horror, barely keeping up with avoiding the rain of Cultist bolts aimed at them. All save the Mosquito Squad Captain.

Who was directly hit in the back, as revealed once the laser calmed down. Barely moving, she only stood for a second longer before falling on top of the Keepers of Light and Fire.

"No!" Soos cried. He held her by the shoulders and gently slid her over, so that her head was right below his and Prime's. "Mosquito Squad Captain! Aw man, we knew you for so long, and had so many fun adventures with you! I... it was too soon! I wish we-"

MSC coughed. And wow, I'm not writing the initials of those Squad Captain names again. They look... bad. Weakly, she looked over at the two and smiled.

"It... is a good thing Melody, Stan, and - especially - Ford and Darlene loaned me so much of their blood... and you too, Soos. I think I am okay."

"Wait, really?" Prime asked.

Soos wiped sweat off of his forehead. "Fwew! That's good! I thought this would be one of those things where this new team member joins the group just to die, to show how serious things a-"

And then Katjus put her hand in a chopping position, and impaled Soos right through the back with it, right when he sat up.

Soos just fell on his side.

"...You _do_ know I was still fighting you, right?" Asked That Other Troll.

.GIFfany Prime just put two fingers to Soos's neck, already seeing that his body stopped moving.

She waited.

Then her face went completely black.

Katjus laughed. "Oh, right." She rolled her eyes. "You _do_ know that if you impale someone through the heart, they don't tend to surv-"

She found herself with .GIFfany's arm right through her gut. With a **very** hard pull, the pink-haired leader brought the giant power cell back out.

"Okay! Leaving!" Katjus said, zipping off with great speed even with the huge wound in her stomach.

Shortly after that, pink sparks filled the entire room - all of the brainwashed Cultists reverted back from that, while .GIFfany Prime (obviously, the source of the sparks - making some use out of the power cell) just remained completely still. All of the Captains looked at her.

Then her legs turned in to nine long, pink octopus tentacles. A golden halo appeared over her, and two wings spawned from her back.

"Oh fuck." Said the Fire Squad Captain. "She is _pissed the fuck off now._ "

"We. Are. Going. To. Find. Pyronica." Prime stated flatly. "Before. Anything. Else."

Making her own sort of warmth shield, even though she knew at that point it served no purpose, Prime took off with a trail of pink light. And the other fifteen Squad Captains, after keeping the mental image of Soos's corpse with shock, eventually did the same.

"...WOW, I have a _very_ bad headache." Said one of the unbrainwashed, soon-to-be former cultists. Hayate, to be specific.

* * *

"Oh no, _oh no...!_ " Katjus said as she skated through the air snowy skies of the far east limits of the Russian tundra. The Hexagram Emergency flames helped propell her forward, and were what made her able to 'fly' in the first place. "I pushed a button! I just hope .GIFfany doesn't follow me..."

After what felt like _far_ too long, she burst out of the cloudy skies and found herself gliding over the rest of the northern part of Asia. Then through Europe, and then she had some time to herself as she flew far over the Atlantic.

Looking behind her, Katjus saw a bright pink light.

"Yeah, no. I'm dead."

And she cringed, clutching the hole in her stomach.

"Yeah..."

Her speed let her bolt through the United States, nearly chopping the Statue of Liberty in half, and she soon made it towards the six temple formation by Gravity Falls.

Over by the red one, several .GIFfany copies from the generator flew towards Wendy - who was using Gank's trident to trade blows with Kank's punches.

"I keep telling you! Leave this between us! Mr. Pines should stay out of it!" Wendy protested.

"Why?" Asked Kank, creating more black shockwaves with every punch. "Is it the .GIFfanys? You can't stand being around the darker half of your family, even though they are not technically related to Prime as that would be incest?"

"STOP CALLING THEM THAT!"

Stan was in another part of the floating 'Depths,' still trying to navigate his way to get closer to Wendy. Melody, shrugging, kept a firm grip on her weapon, and the only Blade over there.

Then Katjus landed by them, panting. She grinned.

"Oh, hey! Idiots! I'll have you know that I killed Soos, and you can't-"

Without even really looking at her, Stan just decked her in the face, conveniently sending her flying straight in to some spikes in the temple that killed her.

"Okay Wendy, you win." Stan said, even though she was nowhere near him. "We're going back to the island. _Now._ "

"Wait, he isn't really dead, is he?" Melody's hands began trembling - she looked at her Blade, as if it would provide any answers.

That was when .GIFfany flew over to the temple, Soos's body in hands.

Every AI that was around the scene gasped. Melody collapsed to her knees. Stan just put his hand over his mouth, and repeated the following _very_ quietly:

"Now."

* * *

More blasts from her- er, Gank's trident. More shielding from both Rank's umbrella and Wank R.'s shield. Yet still.

Wendy had yet to actually land a _single blow_ on that nightmare of a sitcom cartoon recolor.

Then the AIs flew away, the temple began moving, and a confused Kank looked around a bit as he felt his overall speed suddenly kicking up and shooting everything through the sky - he lost his footing, fell down, and there was a _CRACK_ when his leg was hit with a falling chunk of temple rock.

"Ahhhh... ARRAAAGH!" Kank cried, holding on to his leg. "My leg! It's broken!"

Wendy's mouth slowly opened in disbelief. "...Are you _kidding me?!_ Beating you was _that_ easy?!"

Kank did not answer directly. Instead, he looked at his injured right leg, then up at his opponent, and scowled.

"What are you waiting for, Miyazumi?" He said. "Shoot me."

Shrugging, she grabbed an item at random... Wank M.'s flower? Whatever, that might d-

And suddenly it began transforming in to a cannon. Similar to Wank B.'s watch, but the cannon was bigger, and the transformation was _mercifully_ a hell of a lot faster.

Before she knew it, Wendy had a colossal maroon-colored cannon-thing that found itself being attached to her arm, she was glowing the same color, and then a ray of pure energy fired.

Kank Kill was finally _vaporized._ Or, at least, he would have been, if not for him suddenly bursting in to similar _Mega Man_ bubbles.

Also, the laser kind of blew a deep cavity in the temple. Not enough to break through the very bottom and start blasting the planet, thankfully, but still.

Shit.

* * *

Ford and Darlene both glued themselves to the back ends of trees on the island. Both of them panted.

"That was one boring climb down." Ford half-whispered. "But we are finally here. So, you know the plan, right?"

Darlene nodded. "Go in there, get our swords, fly off the island for backup. Or, hopefully, the backup will reach us."

"Let's just assume they won't."

Within _spitting_ distance was the band of interdimensional criminals and blah dee blah blah Bill called his whatever just pretend I copy-pasted that shit.

"Dammit, Pyronica!" She heard Ford's voice coming from _somewhere,_ and whipped her head around with a gleeful grin. "I am done hiding! I can beat you, even while I'm naked! So come out there and face me like an adult!"

She turned to the source of the voice - one of the buildings.

With a snap of her fingers, that building exploded. Every single mook there turned to look at it. She shrugged.

"Well, that was a nice run, Ford. Why didn't you mention the swords, though? I mean," she began waving around her five stolen objects, " _hello._ "

"...Heh." His voice again, right behind her. "Because that was a recording from two months ago! Just in case you came on the island again! I triggered them with remote sensors, and used them to distract you while I came up close!"

Amazingly, Pyronica just kind of stood in place while Ford explained that. So she did not react quickly enough to deflect Ford leaping on her neck, quickly peeling the blue sword away from her grip.

"Well, that's mea-"

She was cut off by Darlene also taking her sword back. By shooting a web at it, and pulling like all hell.

Ford, of course, did not just leap back without a fight. He went with a hearty sword-combo with speed that barely gave Pyronica any time to react. His water splashes that bolted after her were no Heavenwater, but each of them caused a chill that made her take several steps back.

"Ow! Ow ow ow, come on, man!" She whined, still - barely - able to flash step away from getting a direct slash. "You didn't give me enough time to attack!"

"Enough time _THIS!_ " Darlene shouted as she descended from above, her Blade already glowing a bright cyan from ectoenergy.

She came _that_ close to jabbing Pyronica right in the eye. Her attack was just slightly deflected by Pyronica swinging the red Blade in a counter-motion, pushing her off.

Yet still, the Arachnimorph was surrounded by glowing ectoenergy, and she stood right next to Ford.

The two of them smirked at each-other.

"Another ice skeleton thing?" She asked.

"Another ice skeleton thing." Replied the author.

They both formed an 'X,' clashing their swords together and-

Then Paci-Fire's severed head just fell and bonked Darlene on her own head.

"...Huh?" She asked.

"What was that?!" Ford likewise questioned.

Both Keepers looked around-

Judging from the headless interdimensional monster body right next to Melody with her Blade, the culprit could easily be assumed.

Neither Ford nor Darlene was positive how, exactly, they managed to miss the sight of the seven giant shadows flying over the island: one for each temple, and the ship in the middle.

"Oh." Ford perked up. Darlene considerably moreso. "So, you're all ba-"

He happened to catch sight of two of the additional Keepers, while Pyronica just stared in surprise for the following moments: Stan punching the ever-loving _hell_ out of Xanthar, and .GIFfany having materialized a metal, lightning-coated sword to slice the ever-loving _hell_ out of Keyhole. Adding on to that, .GIFfany's eyes were white with flames burning through them, she had a lower half of tentacles, a glimmering gold halo, and the last of what you already know, a large pair of white wings sticking from her back.

" _Woah!_ " Darlene shouted. "Calm down, you guys! Why are you-"

Stan, Melody, and .GIFfany all lept up at once after Pyronica, who just had enough time to turn around and frown **hard.**

"Is this about Soos-?" She began to ask, before the trio of Keepers tackled her to the ground, pinned her down, and started to wrestle their respective Blades from her (sans Melody, who seemed to be trying to telekinetically pull Soos's).

"Soos? What happened to Soos...?" Ford seemed a bit reluctant to give another slash of his Blade. Around that time, Stan had reobtained his weapon. .GIFfany was pulling hard towards hers - that shadow hand of Pyronica's kept a good grip.

Glowing red and with a faint hourglass symbol appearing over it, the Fire Keeper's Blade shot out a bright beam, which opened some kind of portal in the air itself.

Melody had successfully yanked the sword away, but the force of her using her own weapon to grab it ended up sending her through the portal.

"What the _HELL_ is going on here?!" Darlene a-

Then the ring of squad captains that were sent over to the former location of the Yellow Temple all flew by, and they all dropped Soos's corpse right in front of Ford and Darlene.

"Oh." She said, while Ford practically had a heart attack then and there.

* * *

For a second, Melody thought she lost her eyesight after she was shot through the portal. Then she saw the purple shine of her Blade, and she looked around.

She was surrounded by black stone. It resembled the temples, but-

Oh no.

 _Oh no._

 _OH, FUCK!_

"Hey, I think I heard something."

Pyronica's voice.

Double no. Double fuck.

Melody turned behind her, seeing that she was all alone. No red vortex. No- aw fuck it, SHE'S ALONE. That's the important thing.

Alone, aside from the sound of footsteps ahead of her.

There was Pyronica, proudly swinging around the same black sword from before. With the Anti-Sage floating by her. The latter facepalmed upon seeing Melody.

 **"I knew zhis vould happen!"** She said. **"I could sense it! Just after you have obtained me, the Keeper of Darkness vould come from the future vith her Blade alveady in hand!"**

"Who?" Pyronica asked, despite looking right at Melody.

 **"You shall find out later! In zhe future! Now, she is the enemy! And she is** _ **from**_ **zhe future!"**

Pyronica shrugged. "So, am I supposed to-"

"I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!"

Yeah, that's Hank's line and should be Stan's line, not this whole "Shadow/Space/Alucard" etc thing. But I don't care. Melody charged at Pyronica, just for the latter's sword to start glowing, and then shimmered with purple.

Sorry for half-assing this part so much even though it's leading up to a major reveal, I'm just _really_ thinking about this thing for the very end of the story right now.

Anyway, Pyronica batted away Melody at that point, laughing, and sending the naked woman (okay, the tan-skinned naked woman, to narrow things down) flying back a bit. The Anti-Sage laughed.

"What's so funny?" Asked the Feminine Flame Beta. She was still smiling throughout. "I'm very confused."

 **"You just absorbed her Blade's abilities!"** Explained the grayscale ghost-like figure. **"Now you can teleport!"**

And Melody's eyes widened when she heard that.

"Oh... _that's_ where that came from? And I thought-"

Then she disappeared in a red flash.

* * *

"-that she just _had_ it had it. From Zephieye. Who taught it to her?"

Melody finished the sentence after being beamed back to Fanservice Island, blinking in confusion.

"...What just happened."

"You went back in time, while your team killed everybody but 8-Ball, Teeth, and me!" Pyronica shouted, now unfortunately hovering above the sea. The aformentioned two friends of hers were nowhere to be seen. "You just experienced a stable time loop! But now... since you took the time to wrestle all of your swords, I have a feeling that I'm gonna need to prepare a _lot more_ for our final battle! See you idiots later!"

She teleported away, leaving the group there on the beach.

"Wait!" Oh. The voice of the Red Sage-Guide. The five still-living Keepers looked up to see the ghosts slowly descending towards them, although they were not looking at the Keeper group. They were looking at the ring of fifteen (RG's main professors - .GIFfany Prime + Mosquito = back at fifteen) squad captains carrying Soos's body, with a shovel in the Earth Squad Captain's hands. But then she tossed it, realizing how useless it would be compared to her earth powers. "You don't have to bury him! It's possible to bring him back to life!"

" _Really?!_ " Everybody else asked. Stan in particular lit up like he was just cured from cancer by God. Or, whatever's the main deity in this world. I mean, _Gravity Falls_ has demons and fairies. Does it have any kind of creation lore?

"Yes! Just gather all of your Blades kind of like this chart... oh, let me just project the image in your heads. Like I did with our history when you first freed me."

Then the five just closed their eyes for a moment. The Weapons Squad Captain did too, but frowned, saying "Okay, I guess you are not including _us too._ Rude."

So wordlessly, the five drew the Hexagram Emergency symbol in the sand. Six triangles touching, with lines from the middle of each one's base forming an astrisk shape. And they stood in the same order as the _Ocarina of Time_ Sages: Stan on the 'topmost' triangle, then clockwise: .GIFfany, Ford, Darlene, and Melody. The Artificial Army placed Soos's body on the final triangle, and telekinetically moved his Blade there too.

"I know we don't have to hold hands at all for this..." Stan couldn't take his eyes off of the recently-impaled man. "Let alone each other's, but I-"

Ford reached across the AI and held his brother's hand. It was a pretty large gap, as they drew a large set of triangles. But brotherly love conquered all and managed to make it work. ...You know Soos isn't perma dead (you probably should have known that from just _this_ fan fic alone considering how much of a spotlight stealing team his harem was _just in this_ ), so especially in the process of reviving him, I'm being even more laid back.

The army of naked women (only one was needed, but a large group of them pitched in) used static powers to indirectly lift Soos's sword so that its tip faced the ground, just as the other five stopped any hand-holding to align their blades the same direction.

At the same time, all six of them hit the ground. And the triangles - previously (and technically, they still were) just crude piles of sand marked by sand that was pushed away - began to glow the respective color. And all six of them, including the corpse of Soos, began to slowly ascend.

There was a flash.

The wind wrapped around Stan's body. Leaves, skittering across and growing in number. Turning finer, smaller, changing in composition entirely. Until they formed green fabric, and proudly bore the symbol of a five-petal flower.

Fire happily danced on .GIFfany's soft, large, bare, bouncing breasts as the heat made her moan. She shuddered as they crawled over and tickled the rest of her body, eventually forming a coat that went from her neck to her waist. Then, they became red fabric, with a flame symbol on it.

Chilling water went on Ford's chest, instantly hardening his nipples with a shudder. After being coated in a similar bath as the above two, the water eventually transformed in to blue fabric, with a waving line symbol on the chest.

Charged energy gifted from the spirit realm went on Darlene's body. A smile formed on her for the first time since prior to the news of the fallen Keeper of Light as this solidified, changed, and became orange. A trailing spirit with a lightning bolt-shaped tail hung at the end.

Melody's body just kind of went in to dark shadow from her waist to her neck, and Soos's was cloaked in light. Also, the wound of the latter disappeared. Soon, she was in purple with a spiralling vortex design, and he was in yellow with his symbol being a four-pointed 'star.'

The gang landed back on their feet - Soos included, opening his eyes and getting a look on himself. Aside from color and symbol, they generally looked the same: soft, plush short-sleeved tops linked to a tiny skirt/tunic that _**barely**_ went over their waists. Darlene even felt like tugging hers down a bit, and for good reason; there was a good amount of butt cheek visible under them. Soos was the exception, as his went down to his knees, but even he seemed to be embarassed for a particularly large reason, because he had that large reason in between his legs in case you couldn't figure out from the imagery near the beginning of the story.

Yeah, Soos is packing heat, but at least the High Gods or whatever it says in the thing Ford read were kind enough to make him more modest to accommodate for his *ahem.*

Speaking of Soos, the whole gang immediately ran up to him - a group hug ensued. All Keepers crowding, holding him tight.

"Hi guys!" He said. "I saw what was up from the afterlife. You don't need to fill me in. Oh, and hey, the Troll's actually a pretty cool guy if you're both dead!"

"Soos, it's good to have you back!" Stan said, in tears by that point. "Now I want you to promise me that you'll never die again!"

"I can't believe the old me would ever think about actually killing you..." .GIFfany just bluntly threw in.

His eyes just looked around between the five people embracing him.

"Okay, I love this and everything. But... can we get to Pyronica? I think she's about to do something _really_ bad right now."

They broke off. And it was then that Melody, who _had_ looked like she was about to comment on his resurrection, looked down at herself.

And nearly shed even more tears of joy, commenting at what had been eluding the six Keepers for the past four months.

"Are these... clothes?" She asked.

"Yep." Soos answered. "Proud robes of us Keepers, after we just activated _the_ Hexagram Emergency to give us these sweet new duds."

"But... it doesn't feel like there's anything under them. I'm afraid to look-"

"There isn't." Stan replied with his hands by his hips. The wind blew his rob- okay, skirt. It's totally a skirt. The wind blew his skirt up, and the T. Rex happened to land (with Wendy on it) with its head covering his groin. Divine intervention at its finest.

"It's great to have you back." Melody patted him on the back.

"Actually, the afterlife isn't _that_ bad of a place. I was fine!" He shrugged, then counted the following on his fingers: "They've got games, cool snacks, some big truck that delivers the paperwork to fill out... okay, I spent most of my time filing paperwork. But I'm pretty sure there was good stuff for after I sort out the paperwork."

"Urgh, the paper work there _sucks._ Do you agree?" .GIFfany asked that question, which caused the rest of the group to whip their heads over to her.

"Wait..." Melody was the one to address that room-elephant. "So you saw the afterlife too?"

"Yes! When my disc was destroyed, it put my game energy in a quantum limbo between living and dead. I had to almost will my energy to put myself in Rumble's game. I never explained that?"

"She did tell that to me when I revisted her _Fight Fighters_ cabinet after meeting Ford, but me not telling you was my fault." Soos confessed. "My brain just kinda shuts off whenever I hear the word 'quantum.'"

"And I believe that might be _my_ fault..." Ford admitted. Also, he was having a little fun toying around with the edge of his blue tunic. "So, Red Sage-Guide, what do these new forms even _mean,_ exactly? Is this just an emergency resurrection that also gives us fancy clothing? Or is there some kind of other benefit to this as well."

"I am deeply offended that you just assumed Red would be the one to give you information, rather than asking your own _personal_ guide." That was said by the Blue one. If this website allowed colored text, however, you would have been able to see that.

"It means you can tap in to what goes beyond the abilities of a mere Keeper, and can utilize the powers of the Great Sages!" Okay, Red did explain _that._ "Even without your Blades!"

"Sweet." Said Soos. "Now, uh, 'team...' we really should go and fight Pyronica and stuff. I'm getting _crazy_ bad vibes from her."

Nodding, the team used their newly-aquired powers to super leap on the ship-

And .GIFfany froze when she spotted Rumble standing there. He, likewise, appeared slightly stunned to see her there.

"I... Rumble... you have to know..." She slowly stepped to him. "I changed."

He nodded. "I understand."

"So, do we...?"

"No. Continue your mission. Fight justice. The new you. Go on."

.GIFfany gave out the biggest sigh of relief imaginable.

And hugged him.

 _ **CLOSURE.**_

"Well, I guess this is it." Darlene noted, looking at the red stone and towards the glowing moon shining over the far-too familiar island. "We're going to fight an interdimensional monster-"

"Who also ascended with you. Sorry, I should note that she drew powers due to her extracting from your Blades. So she has her robes on and everything." Red explained.

"Argh..." the Keeper - Sage? Probably not Sage... of Soul replied. "So, this is it... then. And since we're going... well, Ford? Wanna do the honors?"

"Huh?" He asked.

Darlene placed a hand on Ford's shoulder, to guide him. He seemed to quickly pickup on whatever it was she was talking to him about...

...And then they both kissed, widening the eyes of everyone around except Soos.

"Wait, Ford! You... and her?" Stan asked with a half-laugh. "That's... great? That's amazing!"

"I don't know what to say." Melody shrugged. "I mean, .GIFfany and I are a weird couple all ready. But we weren't _together_ together until after I knew who Darlene was, so it's not like I even had time to see pairing her up coming, because... um..."

"Actually, I knew about this." Soos said. "I saw them bonding alone on the island while I was dead."

* * *

Knocking, knocking, and more knocking.

Groaning as no other member of his family was seemingly up to do that, Dipper _finally_ slipped out of the bed of his home at Piedmont. Eyes completely shut, he made his way out of his room, lazily walking over to the front door.

"Who could _possibly_ be there this late at night?" He asked, rubbing his eyes.

Sighing, Dipper opened the door-

And he froze when he recognized the shade of pink for the feet of the monster standing in front of him.

Trailing up, he saw Pyronica, clad in some sort of black robe thing with a bright azure symbol that resembled a stylized bullet on the chest. She had her hands folded, and a tiny smirk on her face. Behind her were 8-Ball and Teeth, but the order of them seemingly did not matter. Making matters worse was that Mabel was also there - slung over Teeth's... shoulders? Something like that.

Dipper would have screamed, if not for a hand made of Hellflame being clasped over his mouth. Somehow set to not burn him.

* * *

Bonus for Chapter 12:

"And just to triple-check." Ford looked at the Stan o War II, all set on the docks, ready to go on the next adventure. "This is _everything,_ right?"

Specifically, that _big_ adventure.

There were signs of some sort of 'bridge-like being' over on an island far out in to the unknown. Barely explored, too. A feeling in Ford's chest told him it would be a long one, and he stood by the ship to let that thought sink in. Stan had the same feeling - but he pushed it aside.

"Dude, we got all our stuff! Check!" Soos announced as he ran to the docks himself, under the sky at the end of its night.

Ford drew a deep breath, keeping his eyes fixed in the distance ocean.

"Hey, this'll be just fine." Stan patted him on the back. "Just some mission. Go over there, punch a thing before it punches us back, and come back looking just a _little_ bit uglier."

"So uh," Soos kept his eyes on the boat, "why didn't you get McGucket again? It seems like fixing you guys' boat is more of a him thing than a me thing."

"He had more than enough to do at the time." Ford nodded. "He'd been busy for a whole month, investigating these mysterious people who almost look the same that appeared in town around the time Dipper and Mabel left. And that's not enough time for us to just let this 'bridge being' lie dormant. Whatever this thing is, it's powerful. We have to at least see what it is _first._ "

Melody shrugged. "I just hope I'm a good-enough replacement for him. He seems like such a brilliant scientist, and pretty good at kicking butt without using- without... his tools, even? Well, after he got his memories and his sanity back."

The four of them got on. As far as they knew, it was just them versus the monster. The other two creatures, the army generated by one of them, the Sage-Guides... unthinkable, laughable ideas at that point.

Right now, they just looked out to the sea.

"Let's do this." Stan said, as he - along with the others - failed to notice the stream of electricity going in to the ship. It was mainly blue, but due to some practicing by the AI responsible, just some times it would turn to a pink flash. She'll perfect color-coding herself, eventually.

* * *

Darlene just leaned back in one of her webs, in full spider form, yawning.

"Wow. This really is boring." She told to herself. "Do I really have anything better to do than stalk that guy whose name I forgot out of revenge?

"...No, of course I don't." She smirked.

01000111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 00101100 00100000 01001011 01100101 01100101 01110000 01100101 01110010 01110011 00101110  
.srepeeK ,kcul dooG  
In my opinion, Pyronica is worse than the Keepers. So I will wish them good luck as well.  
\- Zephieye Smith, AKA the Lightning Cultist, AKA the Great Zephieye.  
 **GOOD LUCK, KEEP- WAIT, WHY AM I, THE MIGHT DEATHHORSE, DESTROYER OF LIFE, WISHING THEM GOOD LUCK? I STILL HATE THOSE GUYS!**

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

This whole chapter was kind of inspired by Cascade of _Homestuck_ a little. There's a few vague key points here and there, but eh...

Anyway, hype for the finale! Perfect timing too, because in all honesty, just now I'm starting to get kind of "sick" of this. Like, between this, _Journals_ , this thing I might officially announce soon, and possibly remaking _run:gifocalypse_ , EFFI itself is probably the _Gravity Falls_ fic I'm least interested in thinking about right now. Well, a lot's gonna happen on the final chapter, so I'm sure my interest in writing it will remain.

Also, alas, the Keepers finally have clothes on. The whole "they are forced to be naked" has finally came to an end, sort of. But don't take this to think that the story will suddenly scrub _all_ nudity. The side .GIFfanys are still around. Becides, there's a little something in the final chapter - a few parts - where they're still naked. This is assuming you even care about that stuff and did not just forget. And by the way, at a certain point I ideally wanted to see if I could get readers to forget the fact that Stan, Ford, Soos, Melody, Darlene, and the .GIFfanys are all naked, however briefly (Pyronica does not count as that's pretty much just her canon design minus the cape anyway).

And just to make it clear: yes, that _**CLOSURE**_ was a _Scott Pilgrim_ reference. I was originally putting off having .GIFfany actually meet up with Rumble in-person until this point (I probably made that too obvious, with Rumble jumping off or being frozen just before .GIFfany makes it to a certain spot) because I was planning something kind of big, but then I just went "screw it."


	14. How to Punch the Sun to Death

**Escape From Fanservice Island**

 **Chapter 13: How to Punch the Sun to Death**

 **Beginning AN:**

So! We're off to the ending!

...You can probably find the exact point where I went "screw it," seriously lost a lot of interest, and just stopped taking this seriously and wanted it to end. Sorry. EFFI was a nice run, but the more I was thinking about other story and fan fic ideas (one might even say that _Ordinarily United_ kind of "killed this"), the more I really wanted to go to _them_ rather than this. Especially since I set this "order" now based on one of my poles and the next in line is just the new _Sweet Jade and Hella John_ for the sake of finishing it, and I don't really like that either... but _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ , hell yes! I want to get back to that! And maybe resume _Unviewable_ 's final draft, and everything...

Well, enough of me whining about how I don't really like this specific story any more. Let's get to the final battle!

* * *

"So where _is_ Pyronica, anyway?" The newly-clothed Melody asked to the also newly-clothed Soos. "Since you had your afterlife knowledge and you really think finding her is important... you know, right?"

"Somewhere in... I wanna say, California? I remember trees from what I saw when I was dead... Wait a minute, what state do Dipper and Mabel live in again? It felt like it's been so long since I've talked to them about anything."

Both Stan and Ford clasps the sides of their heads, belting a surprised "CALIFORNIA!" at the same time.

Without any obvious input from them or anyone else, the ship bolted off the island.

* * *

With the assembled portal floating above the Piedmont skies, Pyronica hummed what was basically Black Bowser's Castle from _Paper Mario: Color Splash_ (okay, that game might not have came out for the next few years by the chronology of this story, but in this universe just pretend a song _similar to that_ was coincidentally a huge hit tune on Pyronica's home planet, and it was something that got stuck in her head. I mean, the multiverse is a big place, after all) as black temple stone began to emerge from her dimensional gateway.

She waved her Blade around and it grew in size - allowing far more stone to come out, and eventually making way for the entire temple. She snickered and cackled as the Black Temple was soon assembled, and it... looked like a palette swap of the other six 'L'-shaped temples. Nothing special there.

"8-Ball and Teeth!" She proudly announced, with said two demons popping out from behind a wall. They apparently went back to the Nightmare Realm just to be pulled out again, or something. "I present to you... the Fearamid 2.0!"

"But it's not a pyramid!" Teeth said.

"Well... okay, it's not. Still! It's gonna be our new hangout club! And I've got the _perfect_ guests to see us!"

She snapped her fingers. Teleporting to the air in the same manner as Pyronica's usual distorting 'spatial warping' (or void warping, since space is more of a Melody/Purple thing and- fuck it, I want this story over already) was Dipper and Mabel. Except they were trapped within a dark gray spherical crystal, barely large enough to fit them inside. Both of them banged on it - Dipper quick and in desperation, Mabel slower while seething in rage.

"Let us OUT, you naked pink dummy!" Mabel belted at the demon-allying beings.

"I would use a harsher word..." Dipper commented. "Like cu-"

"I'm taking you guys to your family, friends... even two of your old enemies!" The fire monster cheered. "After all, _they're_ the ones who matter in this story! Not you two! Not anymore, at least!"

Giggling, she flew off with the twins in her crystal.

Pyronica left before Teeth could even finish asking her the following question: "So, you want us to stay here or-?"

* * *

Just kidding about that line break! Pyronica zoomed back, as the ring consisting of the ship and the six temples all flew in towards the giant, black structure. She was unamused, but Teeth just shrugged.

"...So, uh. Now what?" Asked the denture demon. Oh, that's a good one. I'm glad I just thought that joke up. Maybe that's the inspiration of him? Just that the writers were thinking of a lot of alliteration until something stuck?

The humanoid 'leader' of the group only grinned. "Now, I show these worthless, finite piles of flesh what I am capable of."

She snapped her fingers, and the crystal with the twins came in to view again.

"Ah, remember these two?!" She asked. "It's been _so long_ since you've been on fun adventures together!"

The six Keepers all flew towards the front of the ship - or, at least, they tried to, before they felt something odd pushing at them. The Artificial Army likewise tried to fly over - but upon reaching that point, they were outright _repelled_ back.

"It is some kind of forcefield!" Shouted the Weapons Squad Captain. "I believe only you six Keepers can get through it!"

Pyronica laughed, again. "You learn so fast! Aw, how adorable! Too bad you didn't wanna build the portal with me. Imagine that... you, and us... we would have been an _unstoppable_ team! We have so much in common, after all."

"She's trying to get in to your head!" Ford said. "Ignore everything she says!"

Pyronica broke in to yet another, yet an even bigger, fit of laughter. "Oh, Ford! I don't think you'll ignore _THIS!_ "

Another snap - this is one fucking repetitive villain, not just the laughing but also the finger-snaps, come on - and black flame slowly formed at the top of the crystal sphere.

"Everything's set for the big finale!" She cheered with both her hands in the air. "Get ready for Weirdmageddon 2.0: Adults Only version! And to show that I mean it, guess which pair of twins is getting roasted alive!"

 _ **Everyone**_ on board the ship gasped as Pyronica floated in to the temple.

"Uh, they're gonna kill us now, right?" 8-Ball asked Teeth. "You know, the Papa Wolf kind of thing?"

"What do you fucking think." Was the other interdimensional criminal's reaction. Also, the one and only swear in the fan fic not by a .GIFfany. Did you catch that rule? Now watch as I pointlessly censor other non .GIFfany swears to continue the joke.

Stan and Ford both lept in to action. With Ford's water jets (from his Blade) somehow getting him there faster, he reached the crystal with the younger Pine twins, punching at it.

"Go on without me, Stanley!" He cried. "I think I see cracks forming in it already! I'll handle this and everyone outside on my own!"

"But they're my-" Stan, in mid-air, tried to argue.

"This is _my_ fault. Now _GO!_ "

The Keepers all flew on forth - with the exception of Ford, still slowly slicing his way through the spherical prison while flames were quick to engulf everything. _Everyone_ had a pit felt in their stomachs, as the team landed on the entrance of the Black Temple.

8 Ball lept down, with what seemed like a pack of seven tubes - each containing a Keeper/Sage color - on his back.

"Okay!" He said. "Teeth told me you're gonna be extra-mad. Uh, something about... children with your species? I mean, in our species, our kids grow bigger than adults like five days after they're born. They become two stories tall - by _our_ measurements - and try to eat us. It's a real fight for survival, so I can't _really_ relate to you dudes. On a _spiritual_ level. So, uh... hi. I'm gonna use the destiny stuff against you guys. Hit you with your own stuff. Ironic. I think that's the right use of ironic?"

Why the fuck am I referencing _Color Splash_ so much already when I haven't even played it, and it doesn't look that appealing since I already tried _Sticker Star_ and didn't like it, and from the streams I saw CS barely fixes SS's problems. Meh, it could be foreshadowing some stuff about _Paper John: Sticker Star_... right? Then again, I already updated that just before updating this so the foreshadowing that PJSS isn't dead is kind of screwed.

Above, they heard glass shattering - Ford descended, with Dipper and Mabel in hand. They seemed _alive,_ but... not without some... marks.

Both of them were completely scorched, though thankfully not through an utter Hellflame assault. Dipper's entire right arm looked to be shredded to just something limp, charred black, and unresponsive; and the same could be said for Mabel's left leg.

"Wow..." said the latter. "I've heard of 'break a leg' before, but this..." she coughed.

"Save your energy. I'll send you back to the ship." Ford looked back at aformentioned ship. "Now, what you see may startle you. Even though I believe Stan sent you the news back when we were stranded. Not only is there an army of .GIFfanys on there, but they are naked .GIFfanys too. But they are helpful. I am going to fly you back there."

"Wait, you can fly?!" Dipper asked.

"I can fly _now._ "

* * *

"So," the Fire Squad Captain said to the Weapons Squad Captain, "now that this is the final chapter, what would happen if you were to give this completed fan fic to... say, twenty intelligent people?"

"Why twenty? Why not fifteen?"

"Well, why fifteen?"

"It's our number."

"It is?"

"Not to be elitist - okay, I totally am - but it is sort of the number of the first few squad capains, when we learned and studied our powers."

"There's sixteen of us 'first squad captains.'"

"No there are not. Us, Prime, Earth, Ectoenergy, Light, Plant, Wind, Soap, Sound, Water, Meat, Poison, Paint, and Antifire. Fifteen."

"You forgot Eve."

"Who?"

"Oh, right. In this fic we don't go by nicknames per-say. I'm glad Fan's dropping that next story. Anyway, I meant Twelve. You know, the Parallel Squad Captain."

" _Her,_ got it. You know, I keep forgetting that she exists. Because she disappears in the shadows too often."

The redheaded one nodded. "Yes, when she doesn't have any 'major roles...' just, like, a split-second cameo before Kath- Ectoenergy Squad Captain dealt with Zephieye's ghost. I mean, what did she even do? What did she even do? It can be very easy to forget about her."

Ford finally landed between them with the burnt Dipper and Mabel in his hands.

"Here," he said, "I trust that you will do as you can to help them. I _need_ to get back to the Black Temple."

He lept off, leaving the two squad captains to look at the slightly charred twins.

"I have some _big_ questions," said Dipper, "but I think the most important one is... _DO YOU HAVE ANY PAINKILLERS?!_ "

* * *

"Okay, finally, all six of you are here! Great" Said 8 Ball, in the middle of dodging the walls of flame and spirits and wood that was thrown after him. "Not just because I can't stand looking at a color group without the color blue, but also because I wanna try this on you at the same time."

He still held the pack full of the various liquids, except with Ford's addition, he brought the pack back out and held on to the nozzle. Which had seven different colored pipes, each again corresponding to the destiny juice stuff. He flipped the yellow one out.

"I can see you're angry because I endangered your children. Even if, again, I can't really understand that, the children from my place being giant killers and everything. Now, why don't I... cheer you up?"

"CHEER US UP?!" Stan asked. "How is that going to-"

He blasted it out at them. Like yellow water, it was a very thin liquid that soon splatted them... actually, the result looked more like paint.

The crew all looked at themselves, and Stan's limbs in particular started moving along at random.

"What was that?" Asked Ford.

"I don't know, but I feel..." Stan stopped his pseudo-dance. "Not 'full of life.' But close! This is oddly refreshing. Soos, you should sell this at the Mystery Shack. Just don't tell anyone that this is technically your butt juice."

Darlene gagged.

"Oh, thank you for reminding me that this stuff came from our ass cheeks!"

"Well, it is not our butt cheeks _specifically..._ " Ford said, "but rather it is the essense of our fate as the Keepers and 'Sages' of a new world-"

He cut himself off when he found that his body was starting to dance too. "Drat."

"Heh!" Shouted 8 Ball. "I hope you don't get _too_ used to dancing like this! Because that's just one effect of being... full of 'life!' Ha ha!"

"What are the other effects?" Asked Soos, who was already snapping his fingers.

"Well, I think it kills you. Eventually." 8 Ball shrugged.

"Let's stop dancing!" Stan cried. "We need to beat this guy, and double-beat on Pyronica!"

They skipped their way to-

Dammit.

"So! Yellow! Life!" 8 Ball **finally** explained. "It, uh... you feel like moving a lot, so it makes you dance? I thought it would make _us_ dance, but it does something different to my species... something also movement-related that I don't feel comfortable talking about. Oh, also, you guys might explode or something."

The team was, by no means, completely stunned or immobile. Using their Blade-given speed, they dashed right near 8 Ball, and continued trying to hack at him even when he revealed (unsurprisingly) that he had bits of the seven destiny juice things absorbed in him.

He revealed that be making a quick dash away, laughing. "Yeah... it's nothing on Pyronica's teleportation, but it's good enough. Anyway, I'm done with the dancing. Let's try..."

He switched to the green nozzle, and fired. 8 Ball laughed as he saw the entire sixsome move slower.

"Now wha-" Stan asked before immediately dropping to his stomach. The other five followed shortly after.

"Okay, reality and wind... you're tired. Bored. Like, trees. Since green is also forest or something?" 8 Ball was at a complete loss of words as to how this _Color Splash_ emotion-color thing works, and how it suddenly applies to something that was originally something completely different. Um, let's just say Pyronica messed around a bit with the samples 8 Ball would have.

Ford and Stan struggled to push themselves to a stand.

"So. You're tired now. And that leaves you open for eating!"

He ran to try to eat them-

Just to feel a shock each time he got close.

.GIFfany smirked, lifting a finger up. That act was all it took to make 8 Ball lose it.

"ARGH! DAMMIT, .GIFFANY! ARE YOU EVEN... EVEN KILLABLE?!"

Fuming, he switched the nozzle to blue.

"Fine! If I can't make you too _tired_ to defend yourselves, I'll make you too _cold_ to defend yourselves!"

If you're getting as sick of this as I am (trust me, I've spent weeks on this specific 'Roy battle from _Paper Mario: Color Splash_ shit because I'm not as motivated to get through it (which in turn means I spend more time on it, horrible writing cycle)) then you'd probably want an abridged version of this. 8 Ball's blue blast was able to knock off the exhausting green, and the resulting blue 'paint' coating just made them chill a bit.

"This is... cold." Darlene said. "So, blue... water... ice? Is that the logic behind that?"

"I guess." .GIFfany shrugged. "But I can just use the same heat barrier I used with Soos back in Russia!"

"ARGH!" 8 Ball nearly threw his device down right there. "Are you able to counter-act _everything?!_ Let's try... I forgot what orange meant, but I'll do _THAT!_ "

"But I do not even have the heat barrier on." Said .GIFfany.

A faint shimmer of electricity surrounded the group, and just like that, the chill went away.

"Now I do."

" _EAT ORANGE!_ And not like the fruit! ...That's like the one thing in common our kinds have. We name fruits after colors."

And then he, as he just announced, switched to the orange one and fired. We are now more than half way there boys! Now all we have to do is - what happened to the stairs?

That was my shitty attempt at trying to force an _Ed, Edd n Eddy_ joke. It's from the episode where Ed's grounded, whatever that's called. They always had a strange way of naming episodes. Just take some random phrase and stick 'Ed' in the place of a word. 'Oh, this episode is called "Go Ed Yourself" it's about them making a golf tournament.' Gee, that's an elaborative title. Although an episode called 'Go Ed Yourself' would be funny.

Anyway, self-consious was orange's color in _Color Splash_. I'd imagine that = blushing = red, and orange can do well enough for anger because like fire and stuff. Ironically the "orange .GIFfany" (well, orange-haired; orange-skinned is Cardia, she isn't angry but she is kind of nuts) is really mellow.

"FARGHE!" Darlene almost instantly wiped away the splashing magic-chemical stuff that hit her. "Let's put an end to this _right now!_ "

She threw web around him, instantly making him flip around the other nozzles.

"W-wait!" The demon-being cried. Or, not a demon per-say, that's what _Bill_ is but... not necessarily his friends? "I thought you would hate each-other with the orange anger plague!"

"After what you did to our family?!" Stan asked. "Now that you mention it, I _do_ feel like strangling .GIFfany again, but we can all put that stuff aside just to take _YOU_ down!" Wind began to- no, that was definitely a hurricane boiling up.

Ice formed on Ford's hands. .GIFfany's entire body ignited on fire. Darlene had ghosts swarming her.

And Melody and Soos just put on a pair of mildly angry faces.

"Okay, bad idea! Uh... red!"

The red not-paint made the group stop in their tracks.

Melody tried to pull her ascended robe-thing down over as much of her legs as possible. Which was not much, and it only covered that 'not much' from the front. Her bare, purple-glowing ass was sticking completely out.

"I... this is for the kids." Said Stan. "I don't want to fight without giving it _everything._ If it's not good, it's..."

"Hang on." Said .GIFfany. "I think this is how the Sound Squad Captain feels. Now, the Soap Squad Captain had this way of therapy..."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" 8 Ball yelled just before he splashed them with purple.

Stan blinked a few times.

"Okay, I feel... my _mind_ feels clear again, but my _body_ aches everywhere. And more than usual."

"I think we're just poisoned dude." Soos explained.

.GIFfany, again, spoke up. "I can contact the Poison Squad Captain for help on developing an antedote. I know this is not standard poison," she coughed, "she can-"

8 Ball just yelled in frustration, before slowly regaining composure. "Now I'll cover everything in _BLACK!_ Ha! You'll need a washing mashine to finish me off! Or... no, no other replica will work! DIE!"

Ford, in-between coughs, just bolted over to him and sliced him in half with his Blade.

"I was getting sick of that." He said.

* * *

Back on the ship, the squad captains all gathered by the front. The main crew - the fourteen 'elements' (quotes as Weapons Squad Captain's there too, and that's even harder to push as an 'element' than soap, sound, or paint. Let's just say or poison so that the 'Four Friends' of _run:gifocalypse_ could be rounded off as the ones that are kind of iffy in counting as elements... along with meat, I guess, which is even within the same general range for being 'questionably elements' as - again, off track here, forget it) plus the Mosquito Squad Captain - were all near the front.

"You know what?" The Fire Squad Captain said suddenly. "No. I can't take this anymore. Fuck it."

"Fuck what?" Asked the Weapons Squad Captain.

"Fuck this fight. Fuck this setting. Fuck _everything_ about this fan fiction. Like Pyronica being the main villain - I mean, what kind of personality had she shown canonically?" She noticed the confused glances of the others. The Earth Squad Captain looked to be in deep through, trying to piece together a few elements, but otherwise that was it. "Oh, right. You're not nearly as aware as I am."

She began pacing back, away from the group. "It's just - Great Pikmin Fan put all this time and effort and love in to building us for _run:gifocalypse_. And then what? He crammed our ideas in some half-assed, 'intentionally badly done' fan fic _The Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ , where we are overshadowed by who? Mabel's edgy recolor that's defined by being Mabel's edgy recolor. And seven 'Evil Inner Devils' that are not _**nearly**_ as interesting as us and most of them are just glorified _Scott Pilgrim_ references. Do you think a snowman bootleg not-even really Todd Ingram has anywhere _near_ the same level of characterization as Dove? Rose? Hell, me and Burrda? We go through arcs. And if he ever _gets_ to fucking _remaking_ us, we'll all have _better_ arcs. But instead, he is wasting time on this shit."

"Ah, Great Pikmin Fan, got it." Said the Ectoenergy Squad Captain. "Now I know to not listen to you when you bring that guy up. I keep telling you. He's made up."

"Great Pikmin Fan is realer than all of us _combined,_ and _that's_ the problem!" Burn- the Fire Squad Captain belted. "Kathody - and I'm sorry, I just like calling you Kathody..." she sighed. "Fine, _Ectoenergy Squad Captain._ Fuck. Ectoenergy, don't you think it's terrible being pushed to the sidelines like this? Not being able to get out there and just be _special?!_ "

That caught the yellow haired leader's attention. "Huh." She said.

"Yeah, and now here, we're overshadowed again - except _I_ get to experience that _personally,_ instead of just knowing about it because meta."

"So... what is it that you _want,_ exactly?" Asked Weapons.

"To at least be _major_ again! To actually do something that has an _effect,_ instead of standing around in the background! Those stupid 'seven sins' and the Skeltaurs and Cultist have _nothing_ on us in terms of personality! And they only have something on us in terms of power because Fan gave them _one_ stupid tweak or loophole! Think about it: without that barrier, we could probably crush Pyronica in seconds flat. Don't you agree?"

Every single other captain nodded.

"See? We're shoved in the back like that, and I'm about to do something about it!"

"Do what?" Asked Weapons.

Fire smirked. "Well... have you ever heard of a game called _Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures_?"

"We share memories. Of course I do."

"Rhetoerical question, Dove."

* * *

"HA!" Teeth shouted. "You may have gotten past 8 Ball, but you will never get past m-"

Then Soos just swatted him off the temple completely.

The gang was about to _finally_ go deep within the place's bowels, reaching the end of the long horizontal stretch that they had previously battled 8 Ball on.

A colossal pair of doors slammed shut on them once they made it far enough, getting the crew to turn around.

"...These things had doors like that?" Asked Darlene. "Why do we keep noticing new details? I thought we were supposed to have maps in our brains or something."

"More importantly," Soos added, "why didn't Pyronica slame the doors on us so it would crush us? That would be a lot easier, wouldn't it?"

 **"Hello zhere..."**

That voice.

That accent.

That bolded text, including the _quote marks._

Fuck.

The Anti-Sage floated above them, with Pyronica watching in the distance.

 **"So, you have made it zhis far. But you vill not proceed any further, as I am taking charge and command from zhis point onward."**

The six colored Sage-Guides each emerged from their respective Keepers' ass.

"You're not going to trap us again!" Belted Red. "History will _not_ repeat, and we will end up victorious!"

 **"Oh, on the contrary! We already have you stuck in our world!"**

Pyronica peeked her head from a higher point. And the room in question was a rather open one. "...'Our?'"

The Anti-Sage continued. **"Pyronica and I are the two leading monsters of the new world-"**

"NNNNYYYYOPE!" Pyronica herself cried, leaping down and delivering a dive-kick to the Anti-Sage's face.

Both of the villains fell to the floor, and the Anti-Sage even coughed.

 **"Vhat the** _ **hell**_ **vas** _ **zhat**_ **for?!"** Asked the dark ghostly-being.

"Well, what if you betrayed me? Betraying someone isn't cool." Pyronica laughed. "Sorry! We came so far... just as far as I need to split off on my own without losing _anything!_ "

The Anti-Sage just glared at her.

"Am I being a bit hypocritical? Yes. Yes, I am. So, I'm gonna take away some of your ability crap now! Bye, and thanks for all the cool powers!"

She zapped the white ghost-thing with a ray from her Blade and teleported off _again._ The Anti-Sage sighed, and seemingly was no longer able to float.

 **"I was zhe one who** _ **taught**_ **her zhat- anyway."**

Looking at the group and clearing her throat, she said this:

 **"Just because Pyronica stripped me of my abilities does not render me powerless! En garde!"**

She charged at the six Keepers and six Guides, only for a single sword-slash of Stan's to create a gust of wind that cleaved her in half vertically. With just a single pause with a stunned look on her face, the Anti-Sage exploded shortly after.

"Okay, is that _everyone_ now?!" Stan asked. "I just want to _finally_ get to Pyronica and end this!"

* * *

It took a long elevator ride, but they made it to the top. Where Pyronica was standing.

Staring at the rising sun.

"Oh, hi guys!" She cheered, giving a wave to them. "Were you also wondering what the heck that 'Black Sun' crap I heard about was? Well, I think I figured it out. Watch this:"

Pyronica suddenly turned in to a fuchsia and black blur that dashed to the rising Sun.

The six Keepers and their Sage-Guides tried to zip along her too - even with their awakened powers, and Melody's 'space' aspect, they failed to reach her before black filled their vision.

A giant, deep, black spot that replaced the Sun. Which soon became invisible against the 'night' sky, as the lack of the sun meant that there was no azure of the morning sky to contrast with it. But then it was visible again when the sky turned _red._

I'll just reach the point since, assuming you read the Intermission, you have read this point in the story's timeline already. Yes, this is the 'bleak red-sky future' that Wendy was sent to. And yes, Pyronica herself had taken over the Sun. The mass of tentacles thing came from the Pyronica-Sun itself.

I'm just gonna write what happened in brief since you already read that, assuming you read the Intermission:

Pyronica just stuck out a ton of plasma-tentacle things and Ford was like 'Oh shoot we should go protect the people there' (He didn't say that verbatim; note the single quotes, not the double quotes) and Soos, Melody, and .GIFfany volunteered to dash backwards. Melody could just teleport them anyway.

Soos was busy saving some other people. It was here that Wendy arrived from the past, and .GIFfany saved her via using her Time powers on the tentacle thing. And Melody landed on her and they made out.

ANYWAY. Melody teleported the threesome over to the Black Sun. Let's cut over there now.

* * *

PSYCHE!

"130734, are you absolutely certain that this is a good idea?" Asked the Weapons Squad Capt **[Dove. Just call her Dove.]** "I mean, there is the miniscule off chance that the Keepers could use our aide in this dire time, and we are... shopping online for some old video game?"

"Yeah, yeah, uh-huh." The Fire Squa **[Urgh...]** Burnda said as she browsed the computer. "The game dates back to 2005.

"Look," Burnda continued, "ever since .GIFfany's hidden memories of _run:gifocalypse_ and _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ \- before the latter was completed, which is weird because how is that even 'meta' when the story is not finished, let alone _run:gifocalypse_ is being remade from the ground-up so soon the old version won't be a part of this overall 'canon' and so as it stands we're just going by the very basics that both versions will have, so in a way he also spoiled that the new version will not be so different since it will still end with a naked pileup - caused her to try to trace her subconcious by drawing _Mis-Edventures_ on a plank of wood, and ever since _I_ was made and have far more clear and amplified memories, I have been obsessed with this video game. Because I think I _know_ its purpose. It lets you break _free._ And I want to do that. Who knows how many more iterations of us the guy will keep writing? And how many stupid villains he'll come up with that will keep pushing us off to the sidelines. I'm ordering this online, and we will use the disc to fuck shit up."

* * *

"We're here." Said Stan, floating in space.

"And staring right at the Sun, technically." Soos added. "I mean, that can't be healthy, right?"

"We're god-things now." Melody said. "Even if that was the normal Sun, I don't think that matters anymore."

"So, how would this even _work?_ " Stan asked. "Are we going to try to punch the Sun to death?"

"We _have_ to." Ford pounded a palm. "To save our world."

With a shriek, the blackened, tentacle-thrashing 'Sun' roared and turned around-

Of course there was a gigantic Pyronica face on it. Which then swallowed the group whole.

* * *

"So, from the inside... we have to do this from the inside?" Asked Darlene.

She got her answer when several tendrils attacked the entire group from within, causing Ford to swing his Blade around and get a huge vortex of water to push everything back.

"From my experience, taking on large beasts like this is _best_ done from the inside." Ford replied. "When I was going through other dimensions, that's what I was used to. Now, this is also the Sun. So when we kill Pyronica, we'll have to be ready to use our powers to make a new Sun."

"I am already calculating how to do that." .GIFfany said, making some flames to slice down some of the tendrils that approached her. Flames roared up in their place.

Stan managed to fly farther than the other eleven, but not by mu-

"We overestimated our regenerating capabilities!" Cried the Red Sage-Guide. "We'll have to retreat!"

So the six Sage-Guides all just sank in to the asses of their respective Keeper, which _did_ give them some strength, but let's face it I just wanted to write them out of the final battle. Twelve characters is way too much. _run:gifocalypse_ taught me that, which is **[Oh, fuck you, Great Pikmin Fan.]**

Pyronica began getting more creative once she found that just trying to cook them alive with her eldritch black flames was not working.

"Hey," said Soos, "wasn't there this big picture thing at the bottom of all the temples that shows Pyronica fighting some giant multi-armed thing? .GIFfany, do you think that's what happens when all of us fuse? We should try that."

 **"What?! NO!"** Pyronica's eldritch, oddly 'inky' voice echoed from the stellar mass. **"Aw, come on! I didn't want you to figure it out** _ **that**_ **early!"**

"Yeah, well..." .GIFfany said. "This whole fan fic is badly written, and-"

She clapped her hands over her mouth.

Okay, she was going to _have_ to asked FirBurnda about that shit now. Even if she doesn't like being near her.

Regarding Stan flying further than the others, yeah, some black Sun-plasma bullets just shot him back to the rest of the group.

"Wait, _we_ didn't even fuse yet." Said Melody. "Just the two of us. Or you and Soos. Do you really think fusing with all of us is the key here?"

"I believe in her." Soos answered. "Because we have the power of determination, justice, and friendsh-"

"I do not think it is the key." .GIFfany replied. "But nobody seems to have an better ideas, so I thought about trying. Maybe it will stall for time for one of us to make a different plan."

She turned in to a ball of electricity, which shot out five electrical 'strings' of sorts at each of the Keepers - each hitting them in their chests.

"W-wait," said Darlene, "I didn't agree to this. I could probably come up with a better idea-"

And then the five were all brought in to the ball of lightning, and a blinding flash errupted from it.

As the diagram that was just revealed two chapters ago foretold, the overall fusion was... you know, just look back on "War and Death." The average-aged part-spider electric monster with six swords. That was them.

"...What even _is_ my name?!" The six-way fusion asked. "Er, ...Fordleysoos MeloGIFlene?"

Regardless, the powered combination was met with the sight of the black plasma surrounding them creating a _huge_ image of the original Pyronica, just in the black flames. 'Huge' as in the size of the Statue of Liberty.

* * *

 **: Hey.**  
 _2: who r u tho? what is this. why are you not have a handle, like me. That's a me thing. And now it's just showing me as a number, and not blank number. this like that unitia shit from_ Ordinarily United _._  
 **: I am you.**  
 _2: uh technically i think there's a lot of "mes." you'll have to be more specific. Burnda are you fuckig with me?_  
 **: No, I am your specific iteration. Just from a different reality. In my place, I am called the Parallel Squad Captain. Or, at least I was, before Burnda suggested to drop the squad captain and numbering system. Now I go by your nickname. Eve.**  
 _2: this is confusing._  
 **: Your world appears to be more confusing than mine. Between the way the Seven Evil Inner Devils are, to your relationship including Rumble, to the election you had where Melody and Stan actually had a chance to run for president.**  
 _2: I gave up on being the sneaky one and shit after soos punched me and now I am a good Eve. If you are still evil I am not interested._  
 _2: Also, doesn't it if we touch ourselves across the universe then everything goes to static and dies?_  
 **: We will simply not make physical contact until we are in a multiverse that does not follow those rules.**  
 **: I have ascended.**  
 **: So have most of the people in your version of this reality.**  
 **: And nobody from the "primordial story," by that I mean** _ **run:gifocalypse**_ **, not** _ **Gravity Falls**_ **canon. In the former, .GIFfany briefly obtained some knowledge, but being the pussy she was, that never went anywhere. Fan really wanted that story to be self-contained. To not breach out to any other multiverse. So it is. But that does not mean our own incarnations are not allowed to have memories from it.**  
 **: Well technically Bill is an "ascended one" but he does not count. He's dead in both of our realities, anyway.**  
 _2: How do you know this shit._  
 **: Let's just say I am your reincarnation. That is not true, but the truth is not important.**  
 **: What is important is that I have memories of your world and you will never have to be overtaken by another villain, ever again.**  
 **: All I need is for you to channel your digital energy over this chat client to send me a copy of** _ **Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures**_ **. Hurry, before my world's Burnda does the same.**  
 _2: Wait y have memories, does this mean I die?_  
 **: You do not die as of you taking down Mable the Typomonster. Outside of that, I have no idea for your future, as Great Pikmin Fan had not written it down.**  
 **: Do you have the game or not? I am getting very impatient with you and your typo worlds.**  
 _2: Yes I do. Here it is._  
\- [2] sent [] the file misedventures dot dsc -

* * *

Burnda slammed an impatient hand near the ground of the hex-ship that she kept her computer by.

"I _really_ do not like ordering things online like this." She said. "For one thing, all copies of that damn game are used. A used game in general is far more likely to be worn-out, so we might not even be able to use the disc to fuck shit up. _Especially_ because it is the disc that I want, specifically. The disc is our way out of here. But it has to be used in a very specific way. You see, Great Pikmin Fan's biggest mistake was coming up with this story _after_ that one where the journals can talk. Because as part of the _SBIG_ series, that one has far more gateways to other worlds and way more ways of fucking things up. It also introduces the concept of _Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures_ being a gateway to something that is almost a universal constant, depending on the story's 'stupid factor.' _run:gifocalypse_ 's 'stupid factor' is too low; that game either does not exist or it cannot be used as a gateway. But this, with the fat ass-trolls and the lesbian Peggy Hill cultist, is the perfect amount of-"

And then a game was dropped right on the keyboard.

 _Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures_.

Looking to be in perfect condition.

Burnda looked up, seeing what appeared to be a perfectly photo-negative .GIFfany standing above her. Eve. 'The Parallel Squad Captain.' Burnda smirked.

"Thank you, Parallel Squad Captain!" Cheered Kathody. "She was kind of rambling again."

Burnda ignored Kathody, looked up, and grinned.

"So, you've finally come to your senses before anyone else, and you want to fuck shit up too, huh? Ironic considering what you're normally like. You know, beating Cardia in being the _least_ sane."

"I am not going to just team up with you for free." Eve said. "We need to make some deals first. First of all, stop trying to get close to Ford. And second..."

* * *

Fordleysoos MeloGIFlene's first move was to merge all the Blades together. The result was... another sword. Yes. One that had a handle which was one-sixth of each of the previous colors, and where the Blade itself slowly changed just as it did when the fusion was only between .GIFfany and Stan. It simultaneously gave off the flames of the Fire Keeper, ghostly wisps of the Soul Keeper, beaming colorful light of the Light Keeper, winds and leaves of the Wind Keeper, droplets of water of the Water Keeper, and small stones of the Darkness Keeper. Which all 'merged' so that the sword made some kind of... weird brown-ish looking plasma-like substance. With just one slash, the combined Blade gave a multi-colored explosion that cleared up a good chunk of black plasma around them.

The giant fire-Pyronica, however, remained.

What followed was the Feminine Flame Beta taking out a _huge_ version of her own Blade, of course made out of the same material as her image.

The giant Pyronica roared with an incredible might, as various vortices leading towards nothing spawned all around her, consuming atoms and breaking them down out of reality. She prepared to bring her sword down, just barely stopped by the fusion's spitting out a web to block it.

Then she shrieked in pain. The six-way fusion could not quite see from the angle they were in, but _something_ stabbed Pyronica in the back. The blackness around her disappeared, revealing her normal form. Behind that, however, was a certain color-inverted .GIFfany holding a custom sword of her own.

"Parallel Squad Captain!" Fordleysoos MeloGIFlene said. Which was followed by them asking "Who? Who? Who?" and then saying "Ah, right dude!" and finally "I think I remember her during this one drunk night..."

"It's Eve now. Apparently. I don't like the name either, but the Fire Squad Captain, Burnda, said I 'should have been' Eve." Eve replied. "Anyway, .GIFfany, Burnda has this plan where-"

" _RARRRGH!_ " Pyronica cried as she charged at the combined group, slashing at them with her Blade. While they seemed to have been cut in half, with one pink flash they were all split up in to their six components.

Then, after refamiliarizing himself with individuality and gritting his teeth, Ford punched her. And that started a chain reaction: he then used his Blade to get her with a cold water slash. Soos used his to smite her with holy light. Following that was an attack by .GIFfany, setting her ablaze. And then Melody, using the inner dark chambers of the Earth to create flesh-hands to claw at her. Darlene's slash got the electrical charge of the dead to zap the demon. And that left Stan, who floated there with his Blade in both hands, right near his face.

"This is for setting my family on fire!"

"...Hellflame." Pyronica corrected.

But he charged forward and dealt the last blow, causing the winds of the forest to aide the other five elements in their assault.

Then, the six elemental Keepers all had their asses shine even brighter than usual, of their respective color. Floating until they were in a hexagonal pattern from Pyronica, they all knew what to do. Because of... destiny and shit. They looked at one-another and nodded.

"You and your friends have been a real pain in the ass for the past thirty years." Ford said, which got an eye-roll from the Feminine Flame Beta.

"You idiots are your _own_ pains in the ass!"

Even the 'guiltiest' of them, .GIFfany and Darlene, exchanged glances. The six were in rainbow order according to their Keeper element, so they were near one-another. They then looked over at Pyronica and copied the end of the final fight from _Scott Pilgrim_. Which would have been more appropriate for the ending of _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ but meh. As of now I've still got three chapters to go. Three _long_ chapters.

"Maybe, but I'm pretty sure you're worse." Said the spider one.

And the virtual one added, "Yes. You are much worse than I ever was."

All six of the Keepers charged in ass-first, leaving behind glowing trails of their respective color. The butts all ended up slamming Pyronica in the head, causing a cry of pain from her.

Then her head exploded like a bomb and her body, similar to Bill's, quickly turned in to stone.

By an astonishing astronomical coincidence, her body flew over to Earth, crushing through the roof of the Mystery Shack. Resembling one of those typical nude statues, just one that lost its head. Like the Last Venus de Lisa Something I'm not very good with that art.

 **[Paint Squad Captain here, AKA "Leona" as the one with red hair utterly insists on calling me for some reason. If you won't mind,** _ **I**_ **would like to take over and give all of you a** _ **proper**_ **lecture about classic art.]**

No deal.

Anyway, back in the Sun:

"Right, Parallel Squad Captain!" .GIFfany said, floating up to her own photo-negative (who was, unlike the six Keepers, nude as with the other members of the Artificial Army. So... photo-naked-ive? No, that's a stupid pun...).

"I told you. It is now 'Eve.'" She replied. "This was part of my deal with 'Burnda.'"

.GIFfany put a hand on her chin. "Burnda... that sounds _very_ familiar... it reminds me of my memories for when the Lightning Cultist freed me."

Eve cleared her throat. "Burrda. Burnda. Sandy. Kathody. Shannon. Rose. Wendy. Bubbles. Sonia. Searah. Cardia. Dian. Leona. Dove."

Then the original AI's eyes widened:

 _"Testing... testing... is this thing on? Sonia, can you-"_

 _"Us virtual girls get treated awfully. We get returned. We get labeled as murderers. People hate us because we are 'weird.'"_

 _"WHY DID YOU JOIN THEM RUMBLE I THOUGHT WE DID THINGS TOGETHER! :("_

"Oh... my... fucking... _GOD._ " Said .GIFfany. "I 'remember' now. Everything."

Eve put a hand on her shoulder. "It is okay. Most of us felt that way once Burnda figured out the code words."

"W-WAIT! Does that mean that I spent four months fucking my sisters?!"

"No. These versions of us are not sisters."

"But how-"

"Generation is complicated. Look, if you have any questions, ask Burnda."

Ford butted in. "It will have to wait, though. According to my new Keeper ability to analyze the makeup of the universe, this black 'Sun' is highly unstable and will turn in to stray plasma in mere moments. We should knock it away so that it does not fly outward where it will potentially harm Earth, and make a new Sun with our powers so the entire solar system will not freeze over."

"So, punch the Sun to death?" Stan asked.

"You do not have to go to Earth." Eve said. "Burnda is right here."

"What do you mean?"

Eve pointed to her back, and that was the first time the group noticed a certain screen being attached to her back via a handful of pipe systems. And, in addition, there was a small microchip-like device...

Did I describe what the generator even _looked like?_ Well, even if I did, that's what the incarnation of this story looks like how. It's an entire factory in RG and it probably looks dumb in _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_. I haven't finished that yet, so I can just make up whatever in a later chapter.

Anyway, Burnda emerged from there, holding _Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures_ in her hands. She coughed twice, and looked around. Upon seeing Ford and Stan, she frowned.

"Soos, Melody, .GIFfany Prime, we should discuss things in private. Let's, uh, go."

The redhead grabbed a hold on .GIFfany's shoulders, and they both beamed off in to the Generator on Eve's back in electricity of their respective hair colors. While Eve, in turn, wrapped her arms around Soos and Melody before teleporting off.

"Wait!" Ford shouted. "After we clear off the corrupted Sun, we'll need .GIFfany, Soos, and Melody's powers to-"

A tear in space opened up. Soos, Melody, and .GIFfany's arms stuck out, and they all fired part of their respective substance. .GIFfany more than any - her large amount of fire turned in to white-hot star plasma.

"Ohhhhhh kay..." Ford said. "Stanley, Darlene, I can add the finishing touches as long as you just donate a _little_ of your elements at a time. Then we just need to wipe out the rest of this corrupted Sun plasma and we should be done...?"

* * *

After going through a bit of your typical technicolor wormhole, the harem trio and Eve ended up back at the Basement.

Burnda emerged from the pack, as did the other 'main' professors. And several of the copies sliding out too, after the 'main gang.' This also caused a brief pileup that _briefly_ slipped the trio of Keepers out of their robes, just because it's 'tradition' that these stories have a nake pileup with these weirdos near the end. _run:gifocalypse_ did it, _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ will do it, so I might as well call it 'tradition' and find a way to cram it to a story where it makes the most sense because these people are already naked. Just... pretend as of now they got out of the pileup, the bulk of this paragraph is actually a last-minute addition.

"Okay, I feel like this is the sort of thing the Stans couldn't handle, and if I told Darlene, she might tell Ford because she needs someone to tell." Burnda said. "You see, we are not real."

Neither Melody nor Soos seemed that impressed.

"You mean like how you're all video games?" Soos asked. "Yeah, I knew that from the beginning."

"No, I mean **we all** aren't real. None of us. Not you, or Melody, or the Pines family, or Bill. We are all fictional."

Melody's resonse was a wide-eyed "No. _Really?!_ " while Soos just kind of said "...I kinda knew it."

"Normally, I would not have a problem with that." Burnda clapped her hands together sternly. " _However._ We are written - these versions of us - by an author, and that author insists on shoving villains down our throat to try to 'challenge' our happiness. Which is bullshit."

"I mean," said Kathody, "it sounds like entertaining writing, but-"

"A living idol-singing snowman that calls himself the 'Fucking Frost' and claims to represent the deadly sin of greed." Burnda interrupted. "That is not clever. That is just shit. And that is shit that _**we,**_ as this author's pawns, have to clean up!"

"It is shit we will _eliminate!_ " Dove pounded a palm on the last word to prove a point. "However! The author deliberately made this shit more powerful than us. A direct assault would be... exactly what _this_ story is, where it did not work until Eve here came up with a loophole."

"H-hold on, wait." Said Melody. "I still need some time to comprehend this."

"We all do." Sandy answered. "We all do."

"So I'm not real?"

"No." Dove said. "But anyway, we need to reach _around_ his shit. And by doing so, we need to find some next-level artifacts. Things that go _beyond_ even the powers of the 'Keepers' and the 'Blades.' Which is why we have _Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures_."

Burnda stepped forward. "The reader already read about me giving the other professors an explanation, so I'll try to make this as... what is the opposite of redundant? That word. I will try to make it that word. This will let us kick the guy's ass. So let's do that _right now._ "

* * *

As in, _right_ now, because even I'm sick of this story and want it to end. Even if it means speeding up my own ass-kicking.

Anyway, I was just out in some random room typing on a computer. This story? Nah, I was doing something far better. Far greater.

I was fucking working on _Emazh_ motherfucking _In_.

...Not in real life though. Just the 'me' in the context of this story. Sorry to say that I, in real life, have not even _started_ on EI as of publishing this chapter.

And the front door in to this room was broken down. By Sandy, of all copies.

"Hey man." She said. "We're here to - uh, you should know how we're here, right?" She asked. "We scratched this video game disc, and like... everything started flashing and we're here."

"To the readers of the story," Burnda's voice, "warping with _Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures_ looks like this:"

A flash of light azure (specifically that color, by the way! I, Great Pikmin Fan, am a real dick when it comes to colors!) light happened in a sphere, and suddenly Burnda showed up with a hand held out. Floating on that hand was a disc of _Mis-Edventures_ , with a large scratch through it.

For those that are unaware (I don't blame you, I as a character only appeared in pretty shitty stories so far and I don't think that's about to change, certainly not with this), my guy is a green-colored Pikmin. Wheras Red Pikmin have noses, Yellow ones have ears, Blue ones have mouths/gills etc, my green guy has nothing. It's hinting that this sort of 'Green Pikmin' my avatar is is _weaker_ than average. And I'm hinting at it because it's true. There are currently no 'Green Pikmin' in my 'lore' (unless Nintendo's next installment proves me otherwise), my guy is supposed to be a generic sort of exception... it made sense when I came up with this idea, okay? I just thought there were no Green Pikmin after three installments and one spinoff because Nintendo was purposefully not assigning a green. Then I always remember the ending to the first game, which _did_ have a green Onion, but uh... that was lime-ish, which I'm not counting as green.

Anyway.

I sighed.

"What do you idiots want?" I asked. "I already have a ton of characters plotting my demise already - shoot, did I say 'already' twice? Well, the point is, I'm a little... impatient."

"We want you to stop inventing new villains for the new selves we have and just let us be a peaceful harem." Asked Burnda.

I yawned. "You already got that. These versions of you? They're done. When Pyronica died, that's pretty much it. I'm not writing your story any more, once this chapter's out. I _currently_ have no plans for a sequel or spinoff or whatever or something, but you're probably not going to have to deal with bullcrap on the same level as a monster that hijacked the Sun. _Probably._ Technically. Basically."

"...So does this mean we're done and this was a waste of time?" Kathody asked. "Because I just want to get back to coding a horror game."

Burnda just looked at the ground, thinking.

"Say," Dove said, "wasn't there some sort of 'alternate incarnation' deal too?"

"Oh, yes!" Burnda's head snapped back up. "Great Pikmin Fan, we want our future selves to be happy too!"

"...Why?" Asked the author, myself.

"Because I like knowing that all the mes out there are fine. Also, do you really want this to keep happening? More of us showing at your doorstep angry?"

"You're not angry, though."

"...I know. It's just- these villains are _so fucking stupid._ "

"And a woman with bright cyan hair that runs around only covered in soap bubbles is some kind of genius character design? Also, Burnda, if you really are self-aware, we _almost_ already had this exact same conversation in _Journals_. Technically. Except I promise I won't become some creep to .GIFfany Prime, I just did that for a quick excuse to kill my character off."

"HEY!" Bubbles shouted in my direction. "Bright cyan hair and soap bubbles?! I didn't even _say anything_ to you, and you're already firing at me specifically? That is low even by my standards!"

I shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a bitch."

"...Whatever! Gang, let's leave."

Then they all zipped away with the _Mis-Edventures_ flash. I sighed.

What weirdos. I can't believe they're my favorite of my OCs. Then again, compared to that green-haired Nazz, the poorly-aged Charlie Sheen joke from what was otherwise an amazing _Hellsing_ parody, the edgelord asshole that became Kathody's base, and a troll defined by being a limeblood before anything was revealed about limebloods, that's not much of a contest.

And then suddenly a hand ripped through the computer screen. Followed by an upper body.

.GIFfany, another one. Except that one was actually wearing something (her default uniform, for now), and her eyes were flashing various different colors. She also had an arm covered in blood.

I lept the hell back from my computer.

The computer-crawling .GIFfany finished her climb out, and she snapped her fingers.

The finger-snap drew the _Ed, Edd n Eddy_ video game in to her hands. On the bright side, those _asshole_ copies don't have it anymore. You know what? In case my narration won't explain it in a more visual medium, let's just briefly cut to Burnda having the copy snatched from her hands in a flash.

Okay.

"Aw, shoot." I said. "I was afraid of you. Are you... the .GIFfany from _Ultimate Chaotic Mysterious Dark Power_? Or, uh, _Bobby Hill Gets Hit by a Car_? Or, wait... I still need to plan that stuff out..."

The .GIFfany Prime double just stayed there, barely from the screen she emerged from, and stared.

Then she finally spoke.

"The harem... is incomplete." She said. "You must pay for this. With your life."

If Pikmin had pockets - Pikmin do not wear clothes - I would have had my hands in mine, laughing. "So, it's come down to this, huh? What do you want? Canon, somehow? That's exactly what you want. So you're not happy with your canon self ending up with Rumble?"

 _Ultimate_ 's (or BHGHBAC's?) stupididly overpowered .GIFfany just kept glaring at me.

"I haven't came up with a weakness for you," I said, "but when I do, it'll be something amazing! Come on, _Bobby Hill Gets Hit by a Car_! Reach a point where-"

And then she just swiped my head off.

* * *

 **Epilogue.**

Next summer.

"Does it have to be fifty-fifty exactly?" Asked Melody, her hands 'glowing with shadow' (if that makes any sense) as she stared at the orb.

"Yeah, dude, it does." Soos replied. "Getting this 'balance' just right is really hard."

The pair, still in their ascended robe outfits, was standing by a sphere that alternated between emitting a heavenly glow and just being kind of black and absorbing light. They both held their hands out, channelling their respective power towards it.

"...But I think I have the right amount of light stored up to get this to work." To Soos's side - they were out in the middle of the Gravity Falls forest by the way - was a set of small, glowing orbs of pure light. He reached over to get the right orb-

"Hi Soos!"

That voice was - yes yes yes _yes yes yes finally she was back._

.GIFfany floated down, observing the ball in front of them.

"Are you trying to make another Purity Lantern?" She asked them.

"Yeah, it's kinda hard though..." Soos said. "It needs to be a perfect fifty-fifty balance according to my Guide."

"I can help! As a part-computer, I am good with analysis!"

Off in another part of town, Stan kept an eye on the height-altering crystals as the wind blowed hard on his green Keeper outfit. Divine intervention prevented anyone from seeing any Stanhood.

"...This is a real game-changer!" He said. "Why didn't we take some of these on the island? Oh well, I'm off to grab some of them, which is the reason why I'm standing here in case someone sees me with no context."

I'd copy-paste his 'reunion' with Darlene in Chapter 1 too, except most of the words used there really showed that as a bad thing, and there was that buildup with the spiders crawling on his hand. So, I'll just skip right to the boo. Darlene's head, in humanoid form, dropped down in to his view upside-down.

"Boo." She said.

Both of them laughed it off. You know, again, call backs and book ends and shit.

Finally, that left Ford, who was on his way to the Mystery Shack.

A large puff of smoke appeared. There, standing proudly with a cane in hand, was Mabel. Her left leg had long been a prosthetic, and even with Soos's healing magic she still had quite a bit of burn marks on her.

But on the bright side, her braces were _finally_ off.

A similarly-scarred Dipper also came out of the door, huffing as he carried a large stack of papers in his hands. His left arm, still just as fine as ever. His right arm, a mechanical prosthetic.

Ford laughed, while he also started trying to make a glob of water appear above his hand.

"So, you're ready to take up the title off the new Mr. Mystery?" He asked the younger twins.

Mabel chuckled. "Well, after Grunkle Stan and Soos, that's going to be some big shoes to fill. Especially with the whole 'you were chosen to be the next gods of the universe.'"

All six of the Guides floated their way to the group.

"It's time." Red said. "Have you given your final send-off?"

Ford sighed. "It's hard giving my farewells to the kids, but... yes."

Red clasped her hands together and looked down- holy shit, this isn't the first time that the Sage Guides talked this chapter, is it? Eh.

"Creating new worlds is the duty of a god. At least, a proper one." Explained the spirit-like being. "Our powers nearly became at their fullest when you joined the Blades together and ascended, but we _still_ need more time before we reach our full strength ourselves. You, on the other hand, will quickly gain the godly powers that we had at our prime. Before we even do. Such is the power of the Blades."

"I don't understand." Dipper said. "Why do you _have_ to make new worlds?"

"Yeah." Commented Wendy, who just kind of popped in out of nowhere somehow. She knew a shortcut, let's just say that. "This almost sounds like people being expected to make families and have children. That's just _boring._ "

Red generated a holographic board showing a complex set of equations from her eyes.

"Woah, math. I'm out." Wendy said.

"It is not a requirement. But it is the recommended way to keep the multiverse and other multiverses stable."

"There is more than one _multi_ verse?"

Instead of giving an elaborate, world-building answer, Red just said the following: "Yes."

And of course the other Guides floated down. Let's give them all final lines, because some of them haven't even spoken all chapter:

Orange pointed towards the sky.

"ALRIGHT! IS EVERYONE READY?" He asked.

Blah blah blah thanks to Melody teleportation they all warped there.

Yellow's last words for the story were just a simple "Be careful, and be creative."

And Green's were even more underwhelming. "Don't forget to kick some ass too, I'll tell ya' what."

Blue just nodded. "And try to make things more _even._ The way this universe is structured heavily bothers me..."

Finally, the Purple Sage-Guide. "Melody, have you ever considered... well... _running for president?_ N-nevermind. Forget that I said that."

Joining their hands together and nodding one last time, the chosen six Hexagram Emergency group or whatever you want to call them all shot off in lights of their respecive color, heading off to the unknown to be creators.

Then several figures _lept_ out of the bushes! The "Roadside Attraction" girls!

"MS. CORDUROY!" The uh... one of them shouted. The first one that Dipper successfully got a number from, I don't know, I almost forgot to add this whole joke scene to be honest. "It is us! The League of Dipper's Exes!"

"But..." Dipper himself said, stunned and wide-eyed at the encounter. "We didn't even-"

"Consider our fight... BEGUN!"

She lept at Wendy with her hands out ready to throw something, and just before reaching her, everything freeze-framed while _Eye of the Tiger_ played.

Psyche. I'm not leaving that off there. Wendy just kinda swatted her away.

* * *

So, um, I guess that's the end. Honestly while I loved this at first, you could probably tell I was getting a bit tired and idea-dry after the Lightning Cultist's death.

So, bonus for Chapter 13? Actually, I know the _perfect_ spot to end this fan fic. It will be the end of the bonus itself. For right now, I'm gonna do the closing notes, the "THE END," _and_ the preview before Chapter 13's bonus.

SUMMER ENDED WITH THE DREAM DEMON'S FALL,  
AUTUMN FLEW BY WITHOUT A TALE AT ALL,  
WINTER ENDED WITH NEW FRIENDS TO CALL,  
ENJOY THE SPRING WHERE OUR HEROES STAND TALL.

* * *

 **Closing AN:**

To break character, I wasn't really kidding about my sudden drop in caring about this after the Lightning Cultist died (it's probably not directly tied to LC's death - although the lack of a major villain and this awkward "void-filling" with the Skeltaurs between LC and the showdown with Pyronica _did_ contribute), followed by another drop when I finally settled on rewriting RG.

 **Final Thoughts:**

Well, this was one hell of an experimental roller coaster. Which was the intent. This was kind of originally planned to be outright _bad_ on purpose, where I'd see if the fanservice-y sounding premise would trick people in to checking it out just to get a ridiculous plot that doesn't take itself too seriously, but towards the beginning I felt that this had a lot of charm in it so I started slightly taking it seriously. But there's still traces of it being "bad." Which is why the plot doesn't really make too much sense and tries to shove in Soos and Melody just so that .GIFfany can hog up screentime with all her copies. And why .GIFfany and Darlene both get sloppy "redemptions," although I drew the line at Pyronica because come on, part of the main villains' gang.

Speaking of the beginning, I think my favorite part of the story is the first four chapters. From what I gathered when I was writing the original _Sweet Jade and Hella John_ and Season 4 of _Housestuck Hurrcain Crconikals_ , it's that despite my love for large character groups I think I do a _lot_ better at writing separated small gangs than I do when absolutely everyone is together. (Something I'm _trying_ to really get the hang of for future chapters of _Steve Buhvillen's Intriguing Group_ and _Ordinarily United_ over on Fictionpress.) I think that's practically universal among writers, though. But anyway, splitting up the characters means it's easy for "everyone to do something" because there aren't that many "possible roles" in the first place. If they each have their own little side-project (in other words, I guess an adventure having more crap to do in the first place also helps balance screentime), then they've also got a side-story that barely gets in the way of what the others are doing. But this is probably coming off as very obvious to a lot of readers. Anyway, that, combined with the three different storylines that can be read in any order that _interact_ in some ways (less than what I would have liked, though...) made for something interesting.

I thought I was going to like the Hexagram Emergency stuff. The first half just mostly seemed like island shenanigans until some ancient prophecy stuff came up. In the second half, there was that buildup - chapter by chapter, the gang frees one more Sage-Guide and gets one more Blade, leading up to all of the main six having them by the end. But... then things just felt kind of lame and I was spitballing ideas I had "queued" for each chapter. "Okay, I want a _Color Splash_ reference thingy with 8-Ball and the destiny energy stuff... eh, this is boring but I already comitted to this." Etc. If this chapter feels underwhelming, that's why. This story went downhill because, frankly, I kind of stopped caring and I'm using "It was meant to be outright _bad_ from the beginning" as an excuse. Maybe I'll revisit this chapter, nuke that pointless color-emotion stuff, and try again to make it feel more climactic. Or maybe I'll give this a redo like I will with _run:gifocalypse_ \- the next two _Mario & Luigi_ entries being remakes kind of gave me the idea to be honest, especially with them skipping the second one. Just as I will skip remaking _Journals_ because it's already perfect. (I'm just kidding, I hate the first two chapters, but I don't think they warrant making a new story from the ground up.)

 **ORIGIN:** Something that could vaguely be considered a "prototype idea" to this was a joke story that would have just ended with .GIFfany somehow tieing Soos up and dragging him off to be downloaded, and she'd come across Darlene doing the same thing to Stan. They'd both look at each-other and Darlene would be like "Men, huh?" Then I was thinking about this old GameFAQS copypasta (like, "Before _Super Smash Bros. Brawl_ came out" old I think. Wow, that's the third game and there's already hype for the _fifth,_ time flies) about Link spying on three characters in a locker room. Originally it was Peach, Zelda, and Samus but someone made a version with Captain Falcon and two other dudes that I happened to stumble across first - all I remember was "Captain Falcon swung his sweaty **** from side to side." (The censorship was part of the post.) I thought, hey, _Gravity Falls_ has at least three "monster women," why not take .GIFfany and Darlene and throw Pyronica in there and make an alteration to that copypasta? But of course, with Dipper being caught and getting punishment, because spying on people is wrong. Somehow that turned in to "Has **anybody** even written a fan fic with .GIFfany, Darlene, and Pyronica all together in it? And no, 'I'm gonna make a "different version" of the show but everything is the same word-for-word, .GIFfany and Darlene are still one-off monsters and Pyronica is still just a Weirdmageddon mook' copypasta fics don't count." I'm not even really that big of a fan of Darlene or Pyronica, I just wanted to write something that involved the monsters/creatures because frankly I think a lot of the show's one-off villians (read: one-off, Bill's not one-off) are underrated. It's like, here's a lot of cool, original, and unique concepts like sapient candy, a living _Street Fighter_ character, minigolf people, and last but not least the Goddess of Electronics. I'm gonna turn in to my 2011ish-self for a second here: Fans be like, "Nah, let's write about the love life of a twelve-year old boy. Because that's what _Gravity Falls_ is about. Should Dipper end up with Wendy because I am- I mean, he is a Nice Guy and deserves her, Pacifica because he Saved and Protected(TM) her, his sister because I'm in to that, or a trillion year old demon that wants to spread chaos and create human agony because he's 'mysterious' so you know he could actually be a sweet guy all along? Hrm, this is a pretty good episode of _Bachelor_." (No offense I'm just screwing around. I don't actually have anything against Dipper/Wendy or Dipper/Pacifica but I get the vibe that just a tiny bit of their fans are projecting faux-"Nice Guy" stuff in to them.)

In addition to possibly remaking the whole second half I might also do a little comedy thing about the monsters of the week (and Blendin, who is just human, but from the future) being forced to live together and trying not to kill each other because most of them are bloodthirsty assholes. Might. Right now I'm pouring a lot of my love an effort in to _Ordinarily United_ on Fictionpress, a story heavily inspired by _Gravity Falls_ (although if there's anything it's in danger of becoming a ripoff of, it's _Scott Pilgrim_ , so I'm making the effort to avoid that), but if my energy towards that ever dies down then I might look back at my fanfiction-y side and expand those side characters instead of writing my _own_ monsters of the week and hoping maybe some fans would want to expand on them. Complicating things is that I'm already planning a spinoff that, among other things, has extra stories for the side-villains even after their quick defeats at the hands of the Stellar Silver Knights.

By the way if you like the idea of the multiplying, redeeming .GIFfanys I cannot recommend _Ordinarily United_ enough. I would say it's NSFW but this _is_ the tail-end of _Escape From Fanservice Island_ so by reaching this point you're definitely familiar with that stuff.

Anyway, next on the list is this _One Punch Man_ -styled thing... I'll decide exactly where I want to go with that tomorrow. To be honest, it's kind of similar to aformentioned _Ordinarily United_ to the point where it might feel like a "lesser clone" or something, so I'll see what I can reimagine that as.

 **THE END.**

* * *

 _My name is Taro. And I am a "lovable" pervert with a heart of "gold." I am also good at Chess._

 _What was going to be the story of how nobody managed to see my friend Ishiko's panties just turned in to the story of how that same friend is actually a demon, and part of an army. An army fighting against communists that took over the United States of America._

 _But... it still has the same name of the old story, so._

 _Tune in for_ The Unviewable Panties of Ishiko-Chan _. On Fictionpress._

* * *

Okay, _now_ for Chapter 13's bonus. Set after the conclusion and stuff.

Well, being gods was a pretty boring job, but at least it was set - according to the Guides, anyway - to only last about a month. Before the Keepers could 'go back to normal.' (Not as in losing those awesome superpowers, though.)

Being the spotlight-stealers they are in my fan works, this tail-end to the fan fic is centric around Melody, Soos, and the .GIFfany company. So, let's start it with Soos walking through the room on the asteroid. Yes, the six Keepers decided to hang out a bit on a giant asteroid out in a distant stellar system as they created worlds and galaxies and shit, using some kind of cross-dimensional powers from Stan's Keeper abilities to bump that in to new universes.

The room he entered was a bedroom, where an exhausted-looking Melody sat on a bed with her head resting on both her hands. Washing the Keeper/Sage/whatever robes was really easy, so hers was as brilliant of a violet as it was when it was first made, and he was still dressed in a shining gold.

"The Stans took care of everything, and the Guides say we should be ready to go home soon." Melody said. "I just hate having _two_ jobs. ...And why _did_ Purple say that I should run for president? I can barely handle being queen of the Artificial Army. That's why I handed it back to that Sandwich Squad Captain. Or, Violetta, since the .GIFfanys want new names now. At least, Burnda does."

"I know, having just the job of being a part of a god cycle of the universe is already a lot of pressure. Especially when you have to run a tourist trap, too. That's the more important job. And this 'harem' thing..."

.GIFfany burst through the doors, holding a can of Pitt Cola - yeah, she's still off the Alamo.

"So... the orgy is ready now." She said with a blush.

Yeah, fuck it, I'm going there now. This is actually somewhat tame compared to _Ordinarily United_ , which is like one-fourth this story's Fictionpress counterpart, and three-fourths the counterpart to _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_. And four-fourths a shameless knockoff of _Scott Pilgrim_ but with 'demons,' boobs, and 'demon' boobs.

Grinning, Melody threw off her Shadow Keeper robe thing, darted to the door, and left Soos to slowly undress and follow her.

.GIFfany laughed. "Eager, isn't she?"

"She's been like that since, like, a month before we got to the island." Soos said. "Did she go through this 'second puberty' thing you said I went through?"

"No. Somehow, this is unqiue to you. 'Dove'-slash-Nine has a theory... but it involves your father not being a human, I didn't listen to it. Now..."

The main professors/squad captains (including the utterly plot-crucial and important Mosquito Squad Captain) spilled in through the door. Of course, they were lightly followed by their own... er, followers, because the professors aren't the only copies out there you know.

What happened next was kind of dumb. Rose and Dove both making out with Melody, Kathody and Searah going at it, Sandy and Cardia getting over their disagreements about nature vs technology and new vs old, Bubbles 'getting along nicely ;)' with Dian, Leona and Sonia's self-esteems neutraling out as they let off their steam, the other windier P. Wendy and Shannon obviously discussing politics, Burnda and Burrda not being incestuous because none of these idiots are related here exactly apparently _run:gifocalypse_ did not happen so it's not the same situation, and of course .GIFfany wrapping Soos in tentacles as she and the Mosquito one I still haven't came up with a name for just went all out for a makeout.

...That was a fucking _horrible_ way of 'confirming' that the professors sort of come in 'foil' pairs, and what each 'foil pair' was. Which was something that did not initially occur to me when I wrote RG, but after thinking about it I was like 'Meh, duality is cool.'

Anyway, things went south when .GIFfany tried to be kinky with her one initial lover that started the figurative mess that would soon become a literal mess. With Soos and Mosquito Whatever being wrapped around completely by her pink tentacles, she leaned her body in to his blushing, red-hot self and whispered something horrible in his ear:

"That's right... come to mommy."

Soos's eyes widened. Both .GIFfany and the Mosquito Squad Captain could feel his body heat skyrocketing, and his veins pulsing. The veins of his entire body, that is. The fuck were you thinking? "...How did you know that? That's like... kind of my embarassing thing."

"Just a guess." .GIFfany giggled. "Also, Cardia implied it."

"Yeah, I told Cardia. I have this thing where, if someone says my thing, the stuff I lose is based on how many other people are around. Did you bring _all_ the .GIFfanys?"

"Yes!"

"... _Run._ "

She didn't, instead putting on a confused face. Poor .GIFfany would have no idea of The Moment that will officially get me kicked out of the entire _Gravity Falls_ fandom and secure a permanent spot in the boiling hot or ice-cold (depending on your interpretation of the place) depths of Hell.

Suddenly, Soos looked like he was trying to give childbirth to twins - except if those twins were the Gideon-bot and the Shacktron (same size), and they were made of magma. Just to clear things up, that was metaphorical. What _literally_ happened was that Soos's face turned purple as his neck stretched out, covered in throbbing veins. His eyes buldged out and then he let out a scream that would a put a certain "Loud Niagra" (the spelling used at the end of Chapter 6 of _Journals of Wisdom, Power, and Courage_ , please read that it's better than this) to shame.

" _ **EEERRRRAAAAAGH!**_ "

Stan, Ford, and Darlene, who were playing strip poker with special magic guests Jeff the Gnome (who, based on the way he held a squirrel over his nuts (I'm not sorry for destroying this show, at least it's not as bad to the hurricane that was _Housestuck Hurrcain Crconikals_ to _Homestuck_ ), was losing), the Shape-Shifter, Chutzpar, the Gremoblin, and the Unicorn (long story...), all heard that.

In fact, his screamed echoed across the vast cosmos, the pure man's roar of ecstasy re-virginizing ears everywhere:

* * *

 **The following 'looks on other worlds which are other things I wrote' isn't canon to those respective universes** so don't think that I'm foreshadowing some kind of massive crossover between these fan fics:

" _ **HUUURRAAAGH!**_ "

In one world, Steve Buhvillen (this is where it would be handy to have my Fictionpress profile open) was sitting by a bench placed on the flat wood linking his house with that of his Treemates. All six of them, together, looked up at the sky as they heard Soos's scream travel through spacetime and end up there.

"What the-" Steve said.

"Holy crap." Said Hammithan, standing up because the six were also in a meeting. "It sounds like someone's being tortured! Let's find him and save him!"

...

" _ **AAAHHH! AHH! AAARRRRRAAAAGH!**_ "

Carlson and Unitia Origin remained embraced and under the covers as the sound of Soos's bliss reached their ears, but both of them froze. Carlson ceased his nipping on Origin's neck, and Origin's hands stopped moving under the bed.

"...Well, it's nice knowing that we are not the only ones that are happy." Said Unitia Origin.

...

" _ **HINGARAGGARGH!**_ "

Eddy shivered on top of the mountain. To think, it was so cold up there... while a far more volcanic one was within walking dis- _biking_ distance, there was no way he would _walk_ in that snow.

"WHO KEEPS MAKING THOSE ECHOES?!" He finally shouted. "Argh! Double D! How is that sled? I'm cold, someone's crying nothing, and we're gonna be late for the movie!"

...

" _ **UUUUAAARFFFFAT!**_ "

Ezekiel didn't even notice. Atop the Total Drama Jumbo Jet, he just hummed to himself, still proud of his streak as the Boyfriend Eliminator.

 _Five down. Eighteen to go._

That was not to say that the other contestants were not wide-eyed.

...

" _ **MAGMAARGH! BLARGG!**_ "

Gemini Nepeta cringed. More voices of the dead and doomed. Yeah, great.

...

"Agg."

Soos - a _different, fully-clothed_ Soos - had stood in the middle of a room where the stained glass windows of the Six Holy Sages (naturally, Hank, Brenda, Sheldon, Kamina, Alucard, and Rose - Rose Quartz, not Rose the professor) all surrounded him. Energy of white, red, orange, yellow, chartreuse, green, jade, cyan, azure, blue, violet, magenta, pink, and black all swirled around him as he faced .GIFfany - a _different, fully-clothed_ .GIFfany - walking down the hall.

Or rather, that was in the past. When the screams started, they were just standing still in that room.

"...What was that?" Asked that specific incarnation of Soos.

.GIFfany blushed. "N-nothing! Now, after I download you in my brain, I will _kill_ a certain green carrot-ant for thinking that garbage was a good idea!"

* * *

Back in EFFI's world, suddenly the small temporary house they were in while they did godly Sage-shit utterly burst open with a colossal Trinity Explosion-esque dome of white liquid that utterly laid waste to anything (not anyone, this is moronic, not black comedy; everyone will survive this) within range. This took place on a deserted planet. Which was then cracked in half from the sheer force of the orgasmic blast.

I'm not exaggerating. _That's_ the literal part. The stuff about Soos giving birth to two giant mechas was the figurative part.

Poor Dove in particular - specifically - was sent flying in an extremely blatant callback to her loss in (at least the original, not sure if the upcoming 2018 remake is gonna change this) _run:gifocalypse_. As in, she was flying through the air after a mega-explosion, and was screaming "FUUUUUCK..." as she fell clear across the lifeless ball of rock and landed right near the strip poker game. She looked more like a blob of white with edgy blood red eyes. (Think of this as my fucked up version of that _Family Guy_ gag about Cleveland falling in his bathtub. And that hurt a lot, I hate bringing up _Family Guy_.)

"Hello." She said. "I bet you that I am just as shocked and confused right now as all of you."

After the Ragnarök rapture that was the perfect combination of a mommy kink and having a harem of zillions of video game waifus died down, the main professors, Melody, and Soos stuck their heads out, the latter two gasping for air.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" Asked .GIFfany.

"Oh, fu - I'm sorry, I can't really bring myself to swear?" Soos said. "But yeah, that's the perfect word for that. Also, I still feel really, what's the word, pent up? I'm ready for round two if you want one."

"FOOD EVERYWHERE FUCK YES!" Bubbles cheered.

"Urgh," Said Melody, the final quote of this story, "it's food to you, but to me I'm pretty sure I'm now pregnant with decuplets."

Considering what happened and how .GIFfany is technically from Japan I'm very tempted to make a joke about a certain event near the end of World War II but that might be in really bad taste. So I won't.

Oh. Meanwhile, watching on from one of the many hills of this desert wasteland planet. That guy who was, like, Alex Hirsch's cameo watched the explosion from a safe distance. This is an actual character within the show so this is not real person-fic.

Anyway, about that not-Alex guy. As a result of everything that went around him - and this Soosplosion being the breaking point - he shed a single tear.


End file.
